Don't work the night shift!
Scientists have proven that working at night leads to obesity
A large-scale analysis of observational data on the health of people working the night shift showed that such an unhealthy lifestyle really leads to the development of obesity, according to an article published in the journal Obesity Reviews (Sun et al., Meta-analysis on shift work and risks of specific obesity types).
"In total, approximately 700 million inhabitants of the planet today work either at night or in shifts. We have shown that the high level of obesity among such people is primarily associated with the nature of their work. And obesity, in turn, increases the likelihood of developing breast cancer and heart disease," said Lap Ah Tse from Hong Kong University of China (in a press release Meta–Analysis Links Night Shift to Obesity Risk, Especially "Belly Fat" – VM).
In recent years, doctors and biologists have begun to take a serious interest in how working at night or a constant lack of sleep affects human health. For example, a few years ago, British researchers found that working the night shift can increase the likelihood of developing cancer, as well as reduce memory acuity and reaction speed.
Disruptions in the work of biorhythms associated with such a work schedule, according to scientists today, can lead to problems with metabolism and the development of unhealthy dietary habits, which should significantly increase the likelihood of developing obesity. In recent years, doctors and biologists have conducted dozens of studies on this topic, many of which have led to contradictory results.
Tse and her colleagues decided to find out how night work and obesity are actually related by analyzing and comparing the findings of about three dozen scientific papers devoted to this topic and published in the most prestigious scientific journals in the last ten years.
In total, several hundred thousand people took part in these studies, which allowed Chinese doctors to draw fairly unambiguous and statistically reliable conclusions.
It turned out that constant or periodic work in the evening and night hours was indeed associated with the development of obesity. On average, the probability of acquiring extra pounds was 23-35% higher for such people than for their peers who work during the day or do not work at all. This trend was strangely most pronounced among factory workers, the reasons for which scientists do not yet know.
Most importantly, how long a person worked the night shift and how often he did it in the past directly affected the chances of developing obesity. This means that it was working at night, and not concomitant risk factors such as bad habits, poor access to healthy food or poverty, that contributed to the development of obesity.
According to scientists, these findings should be taken into account by governments of all countries of the world when developing and improving labor legislation, as well as various measures to combat obesity.
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