Want to stay young? Avoid spending too much time on gadgets like phones or laptops, a team of researchers have said in a new study that pointed out that over usage of electronic devices may affect an individual’s aging process. Various studies in the past had underlined that spending too much time on gadgets may impact your eyesight or mental health.
The new study, however, has identified a new problem. Conducted on fruit flies, the study suggests that our basic cellular functions could be impacted by the blue light emitted by these devices. These results are published in ‘Frontiers in Aging’.
“Excessive exposure to blue light from everyday devices, such as TVs, laptops, and phones, may have detrimental effects on a wide range of cells in our body, from skin and fat cells, to sensory neurons,” said Dr Jadwiga Giebultowicz, a professor at the Department of Integrative Biology at Oregon State University and senior author of this study.
“We are the first to show that the levels of specific metabolites – chemicals that are essential for cells to function correctly – are altered in fruit flies exposed to blue light.“
“Our study suggests that avoidance of excessive blue light exposure may be a good anti-aging strategy,” advised Giebultowicz. The researchers at Oregon State University have previously shown that fruit flies exposed to light ‘turn on’ stress protective genes, and that those kept in constant darkness lived longer.
“To understand why high-energy blue light is responsible for accelerating aging in fruit flies, we compared the levels of metabolites in flies exposed to blue light for two weeks to those kept in complete darkness,” explained Giebultowicz.
Blue light exposure caused significant differences in the levels of metabolites measured by the researchers in the cells of fly heads.
In particular, they found that the levels of the metabolite succinate were increased, but glutamate levels were lowered.