Outdoor artificial light-at-night and cardiometabolic disease risk: an urban perspective from the Catalan GCAT cohort study

Abstract We investigated the association between outdoor artificial light-at-night (ALAN) exposure and cardiometabolic risk in the GCAT study. We included 9752 participants from Barcelona (59% women) and used satellite images (30 m resolution) and estimated photopic illuminance and the circadian regulation–relevant melanopic equivalent daylight illuminance (melanopic EDI). We explored the association between ALAN exposure and prevalent obesity, hypertension, and diabetes with logistic regressions and assessed the relationship with incident cardiometabolic diseases ascertained through electronic health records (mean follow-up 6.5 years) with Cox proportional hazards regressions. We observed an association between photopic illuminance and melanopic EDI and prevalent hypertension, odds ratio (OR) = 1.09 (95% CI, 1.01-1.16) and 1.08 (1.01-1.14) per interquartile range increase (0.59 and 0.16 lux, respectively). Both ALAN indicators were linked to incident obesity (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.29, 1.11-1.48 and 1.19, 1.05-1.34) and hemorrhagic stroke (HR = 1.73, 1.00-3.02 and 1.51, 0.99-2.29). Photopic illuminance was associated with incident hypercholesterolemia in all participants (HR = 1.17, 1.05-1.31) and with angina pectoris only in women (HR = 1.55, 1.03-2.33). Further research in this area and increased awareness on the health impacts of light pollution are needed. Results should be interpreted carefully since satellite-based ALAN data do not estimate total individual exposure. This article is part of a Special Collection on Environmental Epidemiology.