The International Agency for Research on Cancer, the cancer branch of the World Health Organization, is going to add overnight shift work as a probable cause of cancer.
Researchers suspect that overnight shift work is dangerous because it disrupts the body's internal biological clock. Melatonin, a hormone, is usually produced at night and it is known for its ability to suppress tumor development. In recent years studies have found that woman working for many years at night are more prone to breast cancer and men a higher rate pf prostate cancer.
"The indications are positive," said Vincent Cogliano, who heads up the agency's carcinogen classifications unit. "There was enough of a pattern in people who do shift work to recognize that there's an increase in cancer, but we can't rule out the possibility of other factors."
Another possibility is sleep deprivation. People who work swing shifts are not usually able to completely adapt to the back and forth changes shift work requires. Lack of sleep lowers the body's immunity and reduces its ability to fend off potentially cancerous cells.
"The problem is re-setting your body's clock," said Aaron Blair, of the United States' National Cancer Institute, who chaired IARC's recent meeting on shift work. "If you worked at night and stayed on it, that would be less disruptive than constantly changing shifts."
Studies have been conducted on the effects of different colored lights for those that work night sifts to try and minimize their cancer risk. While experimenting scientists have so far found only one color that has the least affect on melatonin production: red.
So one day in the future, all night workers may be working in a red light district.
[Source: ABC News]
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