A Repository for Bottled Monsters: Higher Rates of Breast Cancer Linked to Nighttime Lights

Monday, February 25, 2008

Higher Rates of Breast Cancer Linked to Nighttime Lights

The Washington Post published a story last week reporting on the work of researchers in Israel. The scientists "overlaid satellite images of Earth onto cancer registries" and found that women who live in neighborhoods that have a lot of nighttime light, or those who work the graveyard shift, such as nurses and flight attendants, have a greater risk for breast cancer - as much as 60 percent higher. The key may be a lack of melatonin which is produced primarily at night; however, production of melatonin drops when light is present, especially light on the blue end of the spectrum, such as that from computer screens and fluorescent lights.

2 comments:

Mike Rhode said...: Apparently we need to reconfigure the layout slightly - this comment belongs in this thread:

BrainyGirl said...

Very interesting stuff. I wonder how much of a risk reduction we would see if night workers started taking melatonin supplements.; February 25, 2008 at 6:21 PM
cruisingat60 said...: Good question, and it's addressed in the article: "In keeping with the melatonin hypothesis, mice in cages with night lighting have normal cancer rates if they get shots of the hormone. And blind women, whose eyes cannot detect light and so have robust production of melatonin, have lower-than-average breast cancer rates."

Like you, I think this is really interesting.; February 25, 2008 at 8:13 PM

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Who are we?

Mike Rhode was the chief archivist of the Museum from 1989-2011, and is the founder of this blog. I maintain an interest in the course of the museum, and will be posting relevant information.

The Army Medical Museum was founded in 1862 during the American Civil War. After World War II, a parent-child relationship was inverted and the Museum became part of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Since then, the Museum has moved around Washington, stopping for years in Ford's Theatre, and on the National Mall where the building it shared with the National Library of Medicine once stood, until it was demolished in 1968 for the Hirshhorn Museum. For 35 years it was at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and now is in Silver Spring, MD.

So what about that blog name?

It's historical. I found it in a quote from one of the former curators. World War II confirmed the Army Medical Museum's primary role in pathology consultation. James Ash, the curator during the war and a pathologist, noted, "Shortly after the last war, more concerted efforts were instituted to concentrate in the Army Medical Museum the significant pathologic material occurring in Army installations." He closed with the complaint, "We still suffer under the connotation museum, an institution still thought of by many as a repository for bottled monsters and medical curiosities. To be sure, we have such specimens. As is required by law, we maintain an exhibit open to the public, but in war time, at least, the museum per se is the least of our functions, and we like to be thought of as the Army Institute of Pathology, a designation recently authorized by the Surgeon General."

After the war, it evolved into the tri-service Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

A Repository for Bottled Monsters

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Monday, February 25, 2008

Higher Rates of Breast Cancer Linked to Nighttime Lights

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