Living in an area with high levels of outdoor artificial light can increase the chance of developing thyroid cancer - with neon lights increasing the risk by 55 per cent, study shows. They found that those in areas with the highest level of night light pollution had a 55 per cent higher risk of developing thyroid cancer than those in low-light areas. As some breast cancers could share a common link to thyroid cancer, lead author Qian Xiao and colleagues decided to hunt for an association between night light and later development of thyroid cancer. The team then examined state cancer registry databases to identify thyroid cancer diagnoses through 2011 and found 856 cases among the 464,371 volunteers. 'The association was primarily driven by the most common form of thyroid cancer, called papillary thyroid cancer, and it was stronger in women than in men,' he found.

Source: Daily Mail February 08, 2021 11:23 UTC