A Simple and Cost-Effective Way to Reduce Type 2 Diabetes?

Type 2 diabetes prevalence is up and the Lancet Regional Health has a simple way to reduce it. Daniel Windred and colleagues write:

“Advising people to turn off their lights at night, or use lights that reduce the circadian impact (dim and “warm” light), is a simple, cost-effective, and easily-implementable recommendation that may promote cardiometabolic health and ease the growing global health burden of type 2 diabetes.”

So simple! Just turn off the lights at night, you idiots!

Unfortunately Not Parody

This reads like a parody of the casual causal inference that permeates recommendations for chronic disease prevention. But it’s not funny. And clearly, the journal doesn’t get the joke either. The editors elected to publish a commentary with this study, calling “light hygiene” an “an easily implementable strategy to lower the
incidence of type 2 diabetes.” Further testing of this strategy needed? Nope. These editorialists instead suggest investigating “whether light-tailored strategies can aid the therapeutic outcomes of those who have already developed type 2 diabetes.”

This is a concept of diabetes treatment and prevention made easy. Surely a book will follow.

The Product of Big Data

We have Big Data to thank for this misadventure in overconfident diabetes prevention recommendations. These authors crunched the numbers on 13 million hours of light sensor data and 670,000 person-years of prospective observations. However, big data can give us big insights or big mistakes. The devil is in the details.

And in this case, the big mistake comes from confusing an association with a causal relationship that is sufficiently robust to change the prevalence of such a complicated problem as type 2 diabetes.

A Rising Problem to Take More Seriously

New research tells us that type 2 diabetes really is a rising cause of concern for U.S. population health. In Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism, Sulakshan Neupane and colleagues tell us that its prevalence has risen by 19% over the last decade. This continues a trend of the last three decades and disparities are growing.

So this is the time for serious investigation of prevention strategies. Not glib recommendations to turn out the lights on type 2 diabetes.

Click here for the study of light exposure and here for the commentary that goes with it. For the Neupane analysis click here and then here for further perspective.

Night, painting by Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis / WikiArt

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August 28, 2024