THE ESSENTIAL
- In Europe and the United States, night work has increased in recent decades and affects 19 to 25% of all workers, according to Santé Publique France.
- Controlling and limiting the time during which people eat when they work at night would reduce the growth of breast cancer tumors, according to the author.
Working when you are supposed to be sleeping and resting has a great impact on health, so much so that theOMS has now classified night work as “probably carcinogenic to humans“. Indeed, experts suspect that it increases the risks of breast, prostate, colon and rectal cancer and that it also has an impact on the risk of heart disease, obesity and diabetes of type 2, dementia and overall premature death.
Even a weak light source upsets the circadian rhythm
In an article by The Conversation, Frederic Gachon, Associate Professor of Physiology of Circadian Rhythms at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences at the University of Queensland, analyzed what lies behind this increased risk. According to the scientist, working at night disrupts the circadian rhythm, “the internal clock that regulates our organism”, indicates the‘Inserm.
It is this rhythm that causes muscle strength, the immune system and cognitive performance, for example, to be higher during the day, when the body also stores nutrients from food. These functions decline at night when the body begins to use the nutrients stored during this fasting period, the author says.
However, this clock is synchronized by ambient light: being exposed to a light source at night is known to upset this balanceeven if it is the weak light signal of a television in the bedroom.
Circadian rhythm disorders expose people to many diseases
“This results in increased weight gain, type 2 diabetes, increased blood pressure and decreased immune response.”explique Frederic Gachon.
All of this contributes to an overall increased susceptibility to several diseases, including cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease. According to the author for whom there are solutions to avoid night work: “The first measure to take is to limit rotating shift work as much as possible. While people can, to a certain extent, adapt to working at the “wrong” hour, it is impossible to adapt to constantly changing schedules.”