Blue light link to depression in night staff
NIGHT shifts increase risk of depression by rewiring the brain, a study found.
Tests discovered blue light, which workers are exposed to, alters a brain circuit controlling mood.
Routine exposure made mice less active and go off their food. A team from Hefei University in China think it happens in people.
The finding published in Nature Neuroscience may explain why nightshift workers are a third more prone to depression.
The research also has implications for people who use smartphones, tablets and laptops in bed.
Dr Huan Zhao said: “Light modulates various physiological functions, including mood.”
BRITAIN has sold £10billion of deadly weapons to some of the world’s most oppressive regimes since 2015.
The sales include warplanes, missiles, machine guns, sniper rifles, assault rifles, pistols, bullets, bombs and explosives. Britain sold arms to 35 of 48 countries described as “not free” by respected human rights watchdog Freedom House. Over £5billion of sales were to Saudi Arabia, including fighter jets, missiles, bombs and rifles, some of which were used in a brutal airstrike campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Out of 48 nations listed as ‘not free’ that Britain sells deadly weapons to
More than 100,000 people have been slaughtered in the country’s civil war since 2015, many of them killed by the Saudi air force.
Britain also sold arms to China, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and Vietnam – all listed as “not free” by Freedom House – according to the Dept of International Trade arms statistics report for 2019.
Andrew Smith, from the Campaign Against Arms Trade, said: “The scale of arms sales is shocking. The UK should be promoting positive sectors and businesses, not exporting war, conflict and instability.
“UK-made weapons have played a central role
Andrew Smith in the bombardment of Yemen, which has killed tens of thousands of people and created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
“These arms sales undermine the Government’s claims that it stands for human rights.
“By arming and supporting despots, dictatorships and human rights abusers, the UK government is making itself complicit in atrocities. For far too long, arms sales have been put ahead of human rights.”
A Government spokesman insisted: “We operate one of the most robust export control systems in the world.”