People who work in shifts are at heightened danger of heart disease and the risk increases with years they work in shifts, finds a Chinese study of more than 300,000 people.
Shift work “can earn more profit, but it can also cause harm to the health of employees. Thus, employers should reduce shift work as much as possible,” lead author Weihong Chen, a researcher in occupational and environmental health at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, was quoted as saying to the Health Day.
While the reason is unknown, disruption in the normal sleep-wake cycle could increase stress. In the study, published in the journal Occupational Medicine, the team analysed data from 21 earlier studies involving over 320,000 people and nearly 20,000 cases of coronary heart disease.