Working in shifts won't give you prostate cancer

Working in shifts does not make you more prone to develop prostate cancer, claims a new study.

While this has been well described for breast cancer, few studies had examined the correlation between shift work and prostate cancer.

Gael P. Hammer evaluated the personnel and health data of almost 28 000 employees of a chemical company in Rhineland-Palatinate between 1995 and 2005.

Some 340 developed prostate cancer, however these included comparable numbers of shift and day workers.

Therefore, the article contradicts the findings of smaller studies, with fewer participants, on the same subject.

The authors emphasise that their study was the first to analyse the effect of shift work on prostate cancer including such a large number of participants with well documented data.

The article is published in Deutsches Arzteblatt International.