Khaberni - A Dutch scientific study has proven that type 2 diabetes patients can regulate their blood glucose levels by sitting several hours a day in natural daylight.
Despite the benefits of natural daylight in maintaining overall health and human mood, studies have shown that between 80% and 90% of people in Western societies spend most of their time indoors in closed environments and rely on artificial lighting, which negatively affects overall health and the human biological clock, along with vital functions such as digestion and body temperature regulation. However, no study had previously been conducted to explore the effect of natural daylight on blood glucose levels in diabetic patients.
In the context of the new study published by the scientific journal "Cell Metabolism," which focuses on metabolic research, researchers at the NUTRIM Institute for Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism at the Maastricht University Medical Center in Maastricht, Netherlands, measured the impact of exposure of a group of 13 type 2 diabetes patients to natural and artificial daylight over four days, while they maintained the same diet, physical exercises, and appropriate medication doses.
The study found that blood glucose levels remained within the normal range for the group exposed to natural daylight compared to the group exposed to artificial light during the experiment. There was also some difference in metabolism under natural daylight as the bodies of the volunteers burned a greater amount of fats for energy and a lesser amount of carbohydrates.
When muscle samples from the volunteers were taken and examined under a microscope, it was found that the genes responsible for the body's biological clock functioned more synchronously in natural daylight, which indicates that natural lighting helps in better nutrient processing within the muscles.
The researchers confirmed in a statement carried by the website "Medical Xpress," specialized in medical research, that these results "suggest that exposure to natural light has a positive effect on metabolism in type 2 diabetes patients, and may also support the treatment of some metabolic diseases."
