Working in shifts can cause disorder in sleep patterns

Working in shifts disrupts the normal cycle of employees, creating sleep-related health problems, finds a new study.

Shift work is an occupational health risk of growing significance because it is becoming more common and because of its potential influence on health outcomes, possibly increasing health differences between workers of higher vs lower socioeconomic status.

A new study from the University of Wisconsin determined that employees who work shifts outside of a 9-to-5 schedule were likelier to be overweight, experience sleep problems, and possibly more likely to develop metabolic disorders, such as diabetes, compared to workers following traditional work schedules.

Lead investigator Marjory Givens explained that such employees become particularly vulnerable to experiencing sleep problems as their jobs require them to work night, flex, extended, or rotating shifts

The investigators used cross-sectional data from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin (SHOW) collected from 2008-2012.

Shiftworkers were significantly more likely than traditional schedule workers to be overweight (47.9 vs. 34.7 percent). They also experienced more sleep problems such as insomnia (23.6 vs. 16.3 percent), insufficient sleep (53.0 vs. 42.9 percent), or excessive wake-time sleepiness (31.8 vs. 24.4 percent).

Dr. Givens and her colleagues also found that experiencing sleep problems was positively associated with being overweight/obese or diabetic. Moreover, even though sleep problems did not fully explain the relation between shiftwork and overweight or diabetes, these association appear to be stronger among shiftworkers who were not able to obtain sufficient sleep (less than seven hours per day), suggesting that the adverse metabolic consequences of shiftwork could be partially alleviated by sufficient sleep.

The study is published in Sleep Health, Journal of the National Sleep Foundation.