The researchers compared levels of DNA damage between the day sleep and night sleep specimens. To get to the bottom of whether night work could actually drive cancer, Bhatti turned to the molecular data from night shift workers, focusing on a common biological marker of DNA damage that’s been connected to disease.įor a 2016 study, Bhatti and his team used previously stored urine specimens collected during day sleep and night sleep from a group of 223 Seattle-area nurses, orderlies and other hospital employees who regularly pulled graveyard shifts. “I feel we have a lot more to learn and there might be people we really need to help,” referring to the millions of people around the world who work nights and, as a result, might be at risk for cancer and other diseases. Among other problems (the study relied on participants’ memory of how much shift work they’d done over the decades), Bhatti believes the study’s three-year follow-up was “way too short” to support this conclusion. Last year, a large British prospective study compared breast cancer incidence with shift-work data from England’s Million Women Study and concluded there was no night work–breast cancer connection, after all. There are different types of shift schedules that one can have.” “Shift work is a really complex exposure,” he said. The night work–cancer connectionĪn epidemiologist who came to Fred Hutch from the National Cancer Institute in 2009, Bhatti is the first to admit the night work–cancer question is fraught with complications. The night time is the right time - for sleep, at least. His latest study, published today in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, confirms that the body repairs DNA damage more efficiently if you sleep during the night than it does if you sleep during the day - and offers insights as to why.Īpparently, Ray Charles was right. Parveen Bhatti has been trying to figure that out. Why, exactly, is working at night so bad for our health?įor the past few years, Fred Hutch epidemiologist Dr. And other studies have backed up the night shift–cancer connection, leading the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2007 to classify shift work that disrupts circadian rhythm as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Scott Davis found nurses like Krupienski, who regularly worked a graveyard shift, were more than 1.5 times more likely to get breast cancer. It’s also important when you sleep.Ī 2001 study by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center epidemiologist Dr. Sleep too little or too sporadically for too long and you could fall prey to anything from diabetes to depression to cardiovascular disease.īut it’s not just about how much you sleep. Sleeping seven to nine hours a night keeps the body in good working order. Most of us know that getting enough sleep is crucial for our health. Perhaps it triggered something that triggered the cancer.” “I think my body was so worn out from so many years of lackluster sleep. “I always wonder if some sort of cell confusion occurs with night shift, reduced immunity and lack of sleep which could've had some sort of influence on me getting cancer,” said Krupienski, now 42. Then in November 2016, she learned she had breast cancer, a diagnosis that left her with a nagging suspicion. Her sleep returned to normal and her health improved dramatically. In 2014, Krupienski left nursing - and her onerous night shift - for a less stressful job at a high school. “I started getting sick,” said Krupienski, rattling off a host of ailments including respiratory infections, sinus infections, chronic stomach problems, acid reflux, gall bladder issues and more. Three years and two babies later, her sleep was still bad - and so was her health, especially after her oldest child started school and began bringing home germs. Her sleep suffered “considerably” but the 31-year-old stuck it out, doing her best to catch up on sleep during her days off. so she and her husband, who worked days, could grow their family and save on day care costs. In 2006, just a year after graduating from nursing school, Nancy Krupienski took a position as a night nurse at a hospital near her home in Vernon, Connecticut. Viruses, Vaccines and Infectious Diseases.Institutional Partners & Collaborations.Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division.
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