Health Check
New Breast Cancer Discovery Is Bad News for Women Who Work Late
There's new news on the breast cancer front -- French researchers have discovered that women who work at night are 30 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than those who don't. The study observed that women who worked on average 4.5 hours overnight for no more than three nights a week were the ones most at risk. Also, the risk was higher for night-working women who didn't have any children compared to those who started working the graveyard shift later in life.
Even though this is bad news for many women out there who must work, or choose to work, when the rest of the world is sleeping, any news breast cancer is, ostensibly, good news.
The more we know about this disease that touches so, so many of us, the better. As more research from around the globe is collected and analyzed, we'll continue to gain a better understanding of this pervasive affliction.
More from The Stir: 4 Surprising Facts All Women Should Know About Breast Cancer
More research is needed to really hammer out the association between night-working and breast cancer, but scientists hypothesize that the link may come from a disruption of the body clock and sleep deprivation, which ultimately leads to a weakened immune system.
So if there's something you can do for the women in your lives, you may want to recommend that they get a good night's sleep. Even though the research is still relatively rough, it's important to note the initial correlation between breast cancer risk and sleep deprivation.
That said, coffee, everyone's favorite sleep deprivation remedy, has been found to lower the risk of breast cancer. Go figure.
Getting some quality zzz's might not just feel great, it could also lower your risk of breast cancer. Not a bad excuse to hit the hay early tonight, is it?
Do you manage to get all the sleep you need?
Photo via Nuper Dasgupta/Flickr
Piping Hot Posts
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
maam953
It's always better to find out the correlation between an event an a disease. When a statement is made like women who work at night have a higher risk of breast cancer, it sounds so cut and dry. Women who work at night, of which I am one for the past 24 years full time, might freak out whereas women who work other shifts might feel they are better off. When there is further clarification however, ie the hypothesis of why this may be, the situation becomes different. I may be getting more sleep than any one working those other shifts and what about men who work at night? Men do get breast cancer. Are they more likely to if they work overnight? How about women who work during the day but stay up late at night? So sometimes I hate when there is a medical finding that doesnt give enough infomation for you to feel like you might need to make a lifestyle change. It has people turning around in circles for example like the don't drink coffee, do drink coffee advise. By the way what is it this week anyway? Can I drink it or not?
chamelinmom
its interesting hearing about real time and body times...could it be more that if you work night, you sleep durring the day therefor do not get enough nuterence from the sun? thats why drs are saying breastfed babies are to take suppliments, isnt it? Saying breast isnt best? which imo is bull sh!t...if you move to a different time zone, your body copes, then the time will adventually become normal, just like in night shift which I could see the not getting enough sleep as a posibility, but not the working night shift
Maura Higginson
This info is not totally new-my Mom was diagnosed over 10 years ago. She worked the overnight shift and slept during the day-her Oncologist told her about the corelation of sleeping in the light and cancer. Don't remember all the details, but it had to do with melatonin among other things. Or should I say lack of melatonin, as your body seems to produce more when you sleep in the dark.
L25
I really hate statistics almost as much as the sensationalistic reporting on them, these are so misleading that it's not even worth the time to read it, take the money from that waste of a study and put it towards finding a cure.
DebaLa
This is not new info/study, and gains acceptance in the Onc community. However no stat lives in a vacuum; there are many, many factors that can result in a CA dx.