Reading today’s Sydney Morning Herald (the Telegraph server is down) I came across this story that links caner with night work. Makes for interesting reading:
"In 1987, Stevens published a paper suggesting a link between light at night and breast cancer.
Back then, he was trying to figure out why breast cancer incidence suddenly shot up starting in the 1930s in industrialised societies, where night work was considered a hallmark of progress. Most scientists were bewildered by his proposal.
But in recent years, several studies have found that women working at night for many years are indeed more prone to breast cancer, and that animals who have their light-dark schedules switched grow more cancerous tumours and die quicker."
Thanks for this link. I heard this possibility before and it seems to be a serious one though no one quite sure why. It may be because melatonin production is switched off in artificial light.
Important to remember that this is a possible ‘risk factor’…not the same thing at all as a ‘cause’.
Me…the only night shift work I ever did was a couple of Christmases when a student sorting the Xmas post in a warehouse in Birmingham…
I’ve heard that theory before too, but it is difficult to do a correlation study because working daytime and nighttime do not give clear patterns of daylight exposure.
Many of us get very little natural light in the winter months. Commuters are setting off in the morning while it is still dark and then coming back in the dark. The only chance for some daylight is going out to grab a sandwich at lunchtime?