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THE blame for rising obesity rates has been pinned on many things, including a more calorific diet, the spread of processed food, a lack of exercise and modern man’s generally more stressful lot. Something else may soon be included in the list: brighter nights.
Light regulates the body’s biological clock—priming an individual’s metabolism for predictable events such as meals and slumber. Previous research has shown that, in mice at least, the genes responsible for this can be manipulated so as to make the animals plumper and more susceptible to problems associated with obesity, including diabetes and heart disease. It was not known, though, whether simply altering ambient light intensity might have similar effects.
A team of researchers led by Laura Fonken of Ohio State University has cleared the matter up. As they report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they examined how nocturnal light affects weight, body fat and glucose intolerance (the underlying cause of late-onset diabetes) in male mice. They found that persistent exposure to even a little night-time light leads to increases in all three.

A. 어휘
Obesity 비만. pin on ...에 책임을 씌우다. calorific 열을 발생하는.
processed food 加工食品(가공식품). lot 운명.
regulate 통제하다, 조절하다, 규정하다. prime 준비하다.
metabolism 新陳代謝(신진대사), 대사작용. predictable 예측할 수 있는.
slumber 잠. manipulate 操作(조작)하다, 조종하다.
plumper 퉁퉁한, 부풀리는. susceptible 영향 받기 쉬운, 민감한.
diabetes 당뇨병. alter 변경시키다. ambient 둘러싸고 있는.
light intensity 빛의 세기, 照度(조도). intensity 强度(강도), 세기.
Proceedings 會報(회보), 회의록, 의사록. nocturnal light 夜光(야광).
intolerance 과민성. glucose 포도당. underlying 밑에 있는, 근본적인.
onset 착수, 시작. late-onset 뒤에 시작되는.
persistent 지속적인, 執拗(집요)한. exposure 노출.