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ShareOct. 8, 2010 — Shift work can cause cancer, recent research suggests. In the new issue of the Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, Thomas C. Erren and colleagues describe the current state of knowledge in this area and point out the challenges lying ahead.
Although it is well known that short-term disturbances of circadian rhythms, such as jet lag, can impair a person's sense of well-being, researchers only recently began to ask whether chronic disruption of biological rhythms over the long term might promote cancer.
The possibility of financial compensation in such cases is already an immediately relevant political issue: in 2008, 38 women in Denmark who had worked the night shift and then developed breast cancer obtained official recognition of their disease as an occupational illness and were awarded compensation for it.
The findings of laboratory experiments performed to date in animals and cell preparations lend plausibility to the postulated link between shift work and cancer, yet there is still no answer to the central question whether these findings are applicable to humans.
Even though the connection between shift work and cancer has not yet been definitively established, the authors make a case for recasting old-fashioned shift-work schedules in the light of recently gained insights from occupational medicine and chronobiology.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Deutsches Aerzteblatt International, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Thomas C. Erren, Puran Falaturi, Peter Morfeld, Peter Knauth, Russel J. Reiter, Claus Piekarski. Shift Work and Cancer: The Evidence and the Challenge. Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, 2010; 107 (38): 657-62 DOI: 10.3238/arztebl.2010.0657
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
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