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Posted By clairel
Thought some may be interested in this. Although we have been aware of the potential additional problems for female shift workers over here for some time I wonder if this will prompt some test cases over here too. Make sure those annual night shift health questionnaires are being carried out!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7945145.stm
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Posted By Sally
This is going to be a very interesting one with loads of knock on effects. I'm not sure how they can say that a particular person's cancer is related to nights or not especially as it says that increase in risk is 'only' 36% ie a fair number of these women would have had breast cancer anyway.
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Posted By Mike Parks
I noticed that the report stated that the increase is based on women worker who have done night shift for 30+ years.
However it does not state anything about the effects on male workers health. Does that mean that the report writers feel male workers are immune from night shift ill health or not important enough to be counted in the survey.
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Posted By Merv Newman
Clair,
I suggest you get hold of a copy of the research and work the numbers out for yourself. Not a lot of detail in the article. But I wouldn't expect it.
Can any of our more exerienced epidemiologists comment on the results of this meta-research ?
the immediate question for me is : the risk from "never" to "+30 years" is said to increase from "1" to "1.36" but what does "1" equal ?
If for example "1" equals 1% of the relevant group (female shift workers who never do long periods of night shift) then for 300 workers 3 would contract breast cancer. At 1.36 one extra person in 300 would contract it.
From personal and family experience I am a strong advocate of screening for early sysmptoms of any cancer.
Merv
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Posted By Ron Hunter
It is a fact that melanonin levels are affected by repeated upset to our natural exposure to daylight (as registered via the pituitary gland).Studies also suggest that administering melanonin during chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer has beneficial effects.
What is less clear is that an upset to these melanonin levels would actually lead to an increased risk of developing this or indeed any other form of cancer.
On the basis of the evidence available then, I posit:
a) women are not at any greater risk than men;
b) the increased exposure to cosmic radiation by flight crew is surely an equal & highly significant factor;
c) an upset to the natural (cyclical) levels of a substance proven to have a positive effect in palliative treatment of one form of cancer cannot then be assumed to contribute to the actual cause of that cancer in the first place;
d) irrespective of factors a) - c), the relative risk of frequent upset to the natural diurnal cycle (i.e. frequent flying across time zones, constant jet-lag) are at least an equal consideration (and therefore risk factor) as true "night" (absence of natural daylight)working?
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Posted By Merv Newman
I've just checked the statistics (http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/breast.html)
The Amercian National Institute of Health reports an overall, all ages, all races incident rate of 0.126%, approximately 1 in 800.
An increase in incident rate of 36% would give an additional 0.36 incidents per 800 workers or one additional case for 2 200 workers.
So, while the incident RATE may have risen by 36%, the actual increased RISK is of less than 1 additional incident per 2 000 workers.
From 2000 to 2005 the overall incident rate has fallen by 3.1% and that of mortalities by 2.2%
Thank god.
Merv
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