Gestational diabetes, a potentially dangerous medical condition affecting pregnant women, has been seeing a worrisome spike in recent years. New research shows that the reason may have to do with how much excess light a woman encounters before sleeping.

Excess light at night has already been linked to heart health problems, and mounting research shows that disruptions to our circadian rhythms – the natural sleep and wake cycles our bodies go through each day – can have other detrimental cardiovascular effects. A 2020 study, for example, showed that irregular sleep times might double the risk of developing heart disease.

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In the new study, researchers at Northwestern University (NU) monitored the pre-sleep light exposure of 741 women who wore a monitoring device on their wrists for a week. The women were examined during their second trimester, which is the time when screenings for gestational diabetes typically occur.

Read more: New Atlas