Since my last stint on grave shift a few years back, I’ve always known that working nights is not completely healthy behavior, either physically or mentally. But now the WHO says that it causes cancer. From Reuters:
Shift workers and firefighters have a higher risk of cancer than the general population and such work should be classified as probably or possibly carcinogenic, the International Agency for Research on Cancer said on Friday.
A team of 24 scientists who sifted through the evidence said more studies must confirm the link, but found that shift work that disturbs the body’s internal clock appears to have cancer-causing effects, too.
This internal clock regulates circadian rhythms, a complex system that signals cells to produce various hormones at various times.
“Shiftwork that involves circadian disruption is probably carcinogenic to humans,” the French-based IARC, the cancer agency of the World Health Organization, said in a statement. “Occupational exposure as a firefighter is possibly carcinogenic to humans,” it added.
The statement, published as what the IARC calls a monograph, could affect a significant number of people.
“Nearly 20 percent of the working population in Europe and North America is engaged in shiftwork. Shiftwork is most prevalent in the health-care, industrial, transportation, communications, and hospitality sectors,” the IARC said.
Shift work may cause cancer, world agency says | U.S. | Reuters
In Las Vegas and other casino towns, there are huge numbers of people working grave shift, so if confirmed this would be big news here and elsewhere.
I don’t know enough about the particulars of the empirical experiments on mice or the data collection to critique the findings, but I agree with the last line of the story, which says that there are a number of behavioral patterns associated with working late nights–drinking, smoking, and not getting enough sleep–that could explain the higher cancer rates for grave.