Study links shift work to increased risk of diabetes

Conclusion This systematic review finds an association between shift work and diabetes, overall the pooled results found that shift work was associated with a 9% risk of diabetes. The review has strengths in that it has reviewed the global literature and identified a reasonable sample of 12 observational studies including more than 225,000 people. However, there are various important limitations that need to be taken into account before concluding that shift work directly increases the risk of diabetes. Type 1 or type 2? The main point under investigation was whether shift work could be a modifiable risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes – the condition where people either produce less insulin, or their body is less sensitive to the effect of insulin – rather than the autoimmune condition of type 1 diabetes, which is not caused by lifestyle. However, all of the review’s results and reports of the individual studies just discuss “diabetes”. It is likely that most of these studies would have been looking at how shift work was associated with type 2 diabetes, but this is not clear. Lack of clarity on diagnosis It is not clear from the review whether these studies had definitely included a population of people who were all free from type 2 diabetes at the start, assessed their shift working pattern, and then looked at whether they developed type 2 diabetes during follow-up. All we know is that the studies have looked at the association between shift work an...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Diabetes Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news