![]() “eople who do shift work should be vigilant about risk-factor modification,” they write. ![]() But even though we don’t know why shift work is linked to heart attack and stroke, the researchers write, people can take steps to protect themselves. Of course, most people doing shift work won’t find it easy just to switch to a new work schedule. Most important, the researchers feel their findings have serious real-world implications. ( MORE: Is Social Jet Lag Making You Fat?) In their research paper, the authors say they believe their results are not strongly biased by outside lifestyle factors, however, since adjustments for smoking and for socioeconomic status - measures of occupational class and education - did not alter their results very much. But a woman who works as a grocery-store clerk may lead a very different life than one who works as an office receptionist, even if they are both 50-year-old nonsmokers with a high school diploma. Studies do typically try to adjust (using statistics) for other factors that may make shift workers different from other workers. Studies like this are always complicated, however, in that it’s never completely obvious that shift work alone is the main culprit. Fluctuations in income that come from irregular shifts can also be stressful for anyone on a budget. Erratic schedules make it tougher for people to organize convenient child care, to keep doctor’s appointments or simply to plan leisure time with friends and family. ( MORE: Why Shift Work and Sleeplessness Lead to Weight Gain and Diabetes)īut irregular working hours can also be a source of stress. In their paper, the researchers write that shift work can disrupt sleep cycles and circadian rhythms, and that many night-shift workers in particular report insomnia, which is an independent risk factor for heart attack. Shift workers may be engaged in a wide range of industries, from retail to health care to transportation, and they may be highly skilled employees, like medical doctors, or relatively unskilled, like fast-food workers. ![]() What’s not clear, however, is why those workers have worse heart health. In Canada (where many of the new study’s authors are based), about one-third of the workforce is engaged in shift work. ![]() In their analysis of shift work, the study’s authors included any regularly scheduled work outside of normal daytime hours - such as evening shifts, night shifts and early-morning shifts - as well as on-call or casual shifts, split shifts or irregular working hours, no matter what time of day that work typically occurred. ( MORE: Working the Night Shift May Boost Breast Cancer Risk) Shift workers also had slightly higher overall death rates than average, but those results were not statistically significant. It pools together results from 34 previous studies on the topic, with a combined 2 million study participants from across the industrialized world, estimating that shift workers are at 23% greater risk of heart attacks than the other workers, 5% greater risk of ischemic strokes and 24% greater risk of all coronary events combined (a category that includes heart attack but not stroke). This study is not the first to show a link between shift work and heart health, but it is the largest-ever analysis of its kind. The story goes that this was misheard by those unfamiliar with the language of the sea and passed into everyday use as graveyard shift.Follow who work irregular schedules or work outside of normal daytime hours are at higher risk of heart attack, stroke and other coronary events, according to a new study published this week in the British Medical Journal. ![]() The most unpopular watch at sea (at night) became known as the gravy-eyed shift. People whose eyes were sore or runny through illness or lack of sleep were described as gravy-eyed, especially those working at sea. The 1811 Grose dictionary has the following definition for gravy-eyed: “bleary-eyed, one whose eyes have a running humour”. At one time, the word gravy may have applied to any thick liquid. The origin of the expression appears to have nothing to do with graveyards, however. The expression exists in industry too and is normally taken to mean the least popular shift of the day, normally the one that involves working through the night or at other antisocial hours. Speakers at conferences and teachers are often heard to describe the afternoon session immediately after lunch as the graveyard shift, meaning the most difficult session of the day (in this case because the members of the audience or class have just had lunch and are feeling increasingly tired as the blood rushes from their heads to their stomachs to digest the food).
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