Most people think of daylight saving time as a minor inconvenience that causes temporary tiredness.
However, new research suggests that moving the clocks forward or backward by just one hour may also affect the health of the eyes. The study was published in Scientific Reports.
Scientists from Northwestern Medicine investigated whether changes in sleep patterns after daylight saving time could influence diseases affecting the retina.
The retina is the part of the eye that senses light and sends visual information to the brain. It also helps regulate the body’s natural sleep-wake cycle.
Earlier studies had already shown that losing an hour of sleep during the spring clock change is linked with a higher risk of heart attacks and strokes. The researchers wondered whether the same disruption might also affect the tiny blood vessels that supply the retina.
They analysed health insurance data covering more than 18 million adults across the United States. The team searched for new diagnoses of several retinal blood vessel diseases after both the spring and fall daylight saving time changes.
The study found that the spring time change was linked with a higher chance of developing certain retinal diseases during the following month.
The increase reached almost 30 percent for some conditions, including proliferative diabetic retinopathy and neovascular age-related macular degeneration.
The opposite pattern appeared after the fall time change. People had about a 20 percent lower risk of some retinal vascular diseases during the month after gaining one extra hour of sleep.
Researchers think the body’s internal clock may help explain these findings. Losing sleep can increase inflammation, disturb metabolism and place stress on blood vessels throughout the body. The retina may be especially vulnerable because it needs a constant blood supply to function properly.
The authors cautioned that their research cannot prove that daylight saving time directly causes retinal disease. Other unknown factors could contribute, and additional studies using larger databases and longer follow-up periods are needed.
If future research confirms these results, doctors may eventually consider recent daylight saving time changes when assessing patients with new vision problems. The work also highlights the importance of healthy sleep for maintaining both eye health and overall wellbeing.
Review and analysis: One of the biggest strengths of this research is its very large sample size, which improves confidence in the observed associations. Its main weakness is that it was observational and relied on insurance claims rather than direct patient examinations.
The study opens an interesting new area of research linking sleep, circadian rhythms and eye disease, but the findings should be confirmed before changing clinical practice.
If you care about eye health, please read studies about how vitamin B may help fight vision loss, and MIND diet may reduce risk of vision loss disease.
Source: Northwestern University.
