Computer screens 'make you cheat on your spouse'
Sunday March 23 2008
Extra-marital sex, random violence and eating disorders may all be linked to too much exposure to artificial light, computers and TV screens.
Leading medical researcher Professor Austin Darragh believes the resulting "sleep poverty" may be the cause of many modern maladies.
The one-time radio medical pundit, who is a professor at the Department of Chemical and Environmental Science at Limerick University, says that exposure to artificial light, television and computer screens late into the night, long after the sun has set, severely disrupts normal sleep patterns and confuses the body into thinking that it is constantly daytime rather than night-time.
As a consequence, two vital organs -- the light sensitive pineal gland and the pituitary master gland, which control all the other glands -- start to malfunction, resulting in the system being flooded with inappropriate hormones.
Hormones which can lead to erratic hormonally induced behavioural disturbances such as road rage and obesity, and, over a long period of time, the onset of several major diseases such as heart disease and Type 2 Diabetes.
On a street level, hormonally impaired behaviour can take the form of mindless aggression when a would-be assailant over-reacts to a trivial slight and doesn't know when to stop.
In the normal course of events, the various hormones, from adrenaline to the sex hormones, are in perfect balance in relation to one another.
Thanks to the hormone melatonin, during the winter people tend to sleep more and put on weight to counteract the cold. Whereas in spring, more sex hormones are produced, which results in people becoming more active and frisky.
However, when the mixture is continually disturbed by artificial light pollution, compounded by a late-night lifestyle -- which increases stress -- the results can be quite dramatic.
"Abusing the normal cycle of wakefulness and sleep has enormous consequences. It has had a subtle but devastating pathological consequence in terms of three major epidemic diseases. It may also be a significant factor in the decay of social conscience, resulting in marriage breakdown, extra-marital sex and premature sexuality," Professor Darragh said.
"There is also an associated loss of other intelligent civilised behavioural constraints, resulting in the pandemic of gratuitous violence manifested by the scourge of stabbings, road rage and rapes, self-mutilation and suicides," he explains.
The medical science of psycho-neuro-endocrinology examines how the various hormones, from testosterone, adrenaline, cortisone, insulin and many others, interact with one another and the mind.
Over the past number of decades, thousands of scientific studies have been done on the adverse reactions of competing hormones when everything is out of sync.
The pineal gland, which is located behind the forehead, is known as the third eye, and picks up light signals via a nerve pathway from the optic nerve. The signals are later passed to the nearby pituitary gland.
The pineal gland, which produces melatonin, is extremely sensitive to light and makes hormonal adjustments throughout the seasons and as the day progresses from morning to night.
Premature increase in exposure to sex hormones, due to the inhibition of melatonin, can explain children as young as eight developing breasts, and why some people respond with severe stress to relatively modest problems, leading to suicidal thoughts and acts, the professor adds.
"The pineal produces melatonin which regulates sleep and wakefulness. When melatonin production is suppressed due to artificial light, you end up with the onset of premature sexuality in the young, disturbed sleep and impairment of learning and the ability to recall information," he said.
- Tom Prendeville
