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TUESDAY, Nov. 17, 2020 (HealthDay News)<\/p>\n
Night-shift workers are about one-third more likely to develop moderate to severe asthma<\/a> compared to folks working daylight hours, a new study finds.<\/p>\n Researchers in Britain explained that working a night shift can play havoc with the body’s internal clock, and has been tied to an increased risk for various metabolic disorders, cardiovascular disease<\/a> and cancer<\/a>. So, in the new study, they collected data on nearly 287,000 people listed in the U.K. Biobank between 2007 and 2010.<\/p>\n Compared with people who worked regular office hours, shift workers were more likely to be men, smokers<\/a>, and live in urban areas and poorer neighborhoods. They also drank less alcohol<\/a>, slept fewer hours and worked longer hours.<\/p>\n About 5% of all the participants had asthma<\/a> and nearly 2% had symptoms that were moderate to severe, said researchers led by Dr. Hannah Durrington of the University of Manchester, in England.<\/p>\n After accounting for age, sex and a range of other risk factors, night-shift workers had a 36% rise in the odds of having moderate to severe asthma<\/a>, compared with those working normal office hours, the researchers found.<\/p>\n Also, the odds of “wheeze” or airway<\/a> whistling were 11% to 18% higher among night-shift workers, and the odds of poorer lung function were about 20% higher in people working permanent night shifts.<\/p>\n Durrington’s group stressed that the study can’t establish cause and effect, and only points to an association.<\/p>\n “However, it is plausible that circadian misalignment leads to asthma<\/a> development,” the authors theorized. “The public health implications of our findings are potentially far-reaching, since both shift work and asthma<\/a> are common in the industrialized world.”<\/p>\n The report was published online Nov. 16 in the journal <\/em>Thorax<\/em>.<\/p>\n About one in five people in the developed world work either permanent or rotating night shifts, most often in service industries or factories, the study authors noted in a journal news release.<\/p>\n Dr. Len Horovitz is a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. He wasn’t involved in the study, but said its findings were “confounded by the fact that there were many smokers<\/a> in this group,” and smoking<\/a> can greatly raise the risk for asthma<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n More information<\/strong><\/p>\n For more on asthma, head to the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n SOURCE: BMJ<\/em>, news release, Nov. 16, 2020<\/p>\n Steven Reinberg<\/p>\n![\"MedicalNews\"](\"https:\/\/images.medicinenet.com\/images\/HealthDay\/healthday.png\")
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