General psychiatry

Day and night light exposure measured by wearable devices linked to dementia risk

Updated

Abstract

Over a median follow-up of 8.1 years, 741 participants developed dementia.

  • Daytime light exposure above 1000 lux is associated with reduced dementia risk (hazard ratio 0.84).
  • Longer exposure to bright light (≥ 0.70 hours at ≥ 5000 lux) further reduces dementia risk (hazard ratio 0.83).
  • Circadian rest-activity rhythms and brain structures may mediate up to 33% of the association between light exposure and dementia risk.
  • Stronger protective associations were observed in individuals with high nighttime light exposure, an evening chronotype, or ε4 carrier status, resulting in a risk reduction of up to 41%.
  • Less than 0.70 hours per day of bright daytime light (≥ 5000 lux) was found to outperform six established dementia predictors.

Simplified

Full Text

Full text is available at the source.

Funding

Competing interests

Yun Kwok Wing reports grants from Research Grant Council General Research Fund (GRF) and Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) and Health and Medical Research Fund (HMRF), which are unrelated to the submitted work. Yun Kwok Wing delivered a lecture for Hong Kong Society of Psychiatrists (unrelated to the submitted work) and received an honorarium for serving as the Chair of the 3rd Asian Narcolepsy & Hypersomnolence Society Meeting which is outside the submitted work. Joey W. Y. Chan received travel support from Lundbeck HK Limited for an overseas conference, which is unrelated to the submitted work. All other authors declare no competing interests.
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