Night shifts, here are the health risks - Corriere della Sera

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Night shifts, here are the health risks

If the round lasts a long time you can “desicronizzare.” Reported overweight, metabolic diseases and cancer development

We live in a society

alarm clock 24 24 hours, seven days a week, where we settled for the night work, live, study. But the night is for sleeping and we should use it for this. “Without sleep we are less productive, make more mistakes, we are less concentrated; rest well even if the treatment will work best,” notes the expert of Sleep Medicine, University of Bologna, Federica Casting. The point is that sleeping during the day is not the same thing: who is forced to work in shifts can risk your health, numerous studies have shown, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has even indicated a possible factor in the shift carcinogen.

BIOLOGICAL CLOCK – “Our biological clock provides the rest of the night – observes Roberto Manfredini, chronobiologist University of Ferrara -. The cells are programmed to use less energy if we eat at night, their metabolism changes and tend to accumulate fat, so those who have the habit of late night snacks to equal more fat calories ingested and is also more at risk for diabetes . It also happens to those who make the rounds, because it is almost inevitable nibble something if you have to stay awake the night shift workers has been reported a greater likelihood of overweight, metabolic diseases, and even cancer, because the night vigil suppresses the production of melatonin, protective against cancer. “

EFFECTS ON CHILDREN – There were enough of these dangers, there are also more subtle. A recent review published in the Journal of Primary Prevention has shown that shift work of parents is related to a greater likelihood of problems in children: from behavioral disorders to obesity, to to greater academic difficulties in language, reading, mathematics. The fact remains that it is difficult to imagine farewell to shift, how to reduce, then the risks?

ACCIDENT RISK – “The studies that have shown negative effects on diabetes, obesity, cancer have been conducted following session musicians for decades, that is, by studying people who worked so many years ago , when knowledge was less shifts were long and even a week: in this way the body gets accustomed and then suddenly had to change again, with a huge stress on the body – says Manfredini -. Today we know that with fast rotations, a few hours, the body is unable to hook to the new rhythm and do not de-synchronize and in the case of airline pilots, who added to the phase shifts from jet-lag, it helps recovery even choosing the sequence of the sections. Unfortunately, with the current crisis happens that the good practices jump to cut costs, or that workers accept unhealthy shifts in order to be hired. ” The consequence is an increased risk of accidents caused by human error, which, however, occur mainly in the early hours of the morning. “Among the 2 and 4 the neurocognitive functions are the minimum and it was shown that the reaction time is about 50% longer, even in those who are perfectly healthy. No coincidence that some of the major industrial accidents in recent history, such as nuclear Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, or the escape of gas from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, have occurred precisely during this time, “concludes Manfredini.

Elena Meli