Northwestern University study finds 30% retinal disease rise after DST
Switching your clocks for daylight saving time (DST) might do more than mess with your sleep: it could actually impact your eye health.
A new Northwestern University study looked at more than 12.6 million health records and found that right after the spring DST change, cases of certain serious retinal diseases like proliferative diabetic retinopathy and neovascular age-related macular degeneration jumped by 30%.
The fall clock change, on the other hand, saw a 20% drop in some eye disease risks.
Sleep disruption linked to retinal inflammation
Researchers think it's all about sleep disruption.
Losing an hour can throw off your body clock and trigger inflammation, which hits the retina pretty hard since it's super active metabolically.
First author Dr. Kyle Chan said, "losing an hour's sleep and circadian misalignment can cause inflammatory responses," while senior author Dr. Rukhsana Mirza pointed out that regular sleep helps protect your eyes.
So if you want to keep your vision sharp, especially around DST, sticking to a steady sleep schedule might be more important than you think.