Light pollution: Interests of feline model as a sentinelle

Light pollution poses risks to human, animal. and environmental health. The chro-nodisruption linked to the lengthening of domestic lighting duration has an impact on obesity and type 2 diabetes in humans, but also in domestic cats, living in the same environment and subject to the same environmental conditions. Clinically expressing the homologous human disease, the feline model could constitute an animal model of type 2 diabetes, that the scien-tific community needs desperately. Moreover, the lighting of public spaces allows the free and roaming cat, a diurnal and crepuscular carnivorous predator, to increase its territory and its hunting time, an opportunity to meet wild animals which are themselves perturbed by light at night; hence a major zoonotic risk. The cat must therefore be considered as a sentinel animal. The feline model is all the more interesting as there are more than 75 million medicalized cats in Europe.(c) 2023 l'Academie nationale de medecine. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.