Rotating Night Shift Work May Raise Risks of Heart Disease, Lung Cancer: Study

Research can't prove cause-and-effect, but does suggest a link

By Robert Preidt

HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Jan. 5, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Working rotating night shifts may pose a threat to your health, a new study suggests.

The study defined rotating shift work as at least three nights spent working each month, in addition to days and evenings worked in the month.

In the new study, researchers led by Dr. Eva Schernhammer of Harvard Medical School tracked 22 years of data from about 75,000 nurses across the United States.

While the study couldn't prove cause-and-effect, it found that people who worked rotating night shifts for more than five years had an 11 percent increased risk of death from all causes.

The risk of death from heart disease was 19 percent higher among those who worked such shifts for six to 14 years, and 23 percent higher for those who worked such shifts for 15 or more years, Schernhammer's group found.

Nurses who worked rotating night shifts for 15 or more years also had a 25 percent higher risk of death from lung cancer, according to the study.

The findings are to be published in the March issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

According to the study authors, prior research has shown that night shift work is linked with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer.

"These results add to prior evidence of a potentially detrimental relation of rotating night shift work and health and longevity," Schernhammer, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard and associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said in a journal news release.

Further research is needed to learn how individual traits might interact with rotating night shift work to harm health, she added.

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High Blood Sugar in Heart Failure Patients May Point to Risk of Early Death

Even normal but slightly elevated levels can signal trouble, study notes

By Robert Preidt

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Checking the blood sugar levels of emergency department patients with heart failure can identify those at risk of diabetes, hospitalization and early death, a new study suggests.

This increased risk was true even if patients had blood sugar (glucose) levels within what is considered normal limits, the researchers said.

"Our findings suggest that the measurement of blood sugar levels in all patients arriving at emergency departments with acute heart failure could provide doctors with useful prognostic information and could help to improve outcomes in these patients," study leader Dr. Douglas Lee, said in a journal news release. Lee is a senior scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and an associate professor of medicine at the University of Toronto.

Researchers reviewed data on more than 16,500 seniors treated for acute heart failure. The seniors -- aged 70 to 85 -- were treated at hospital emergency departments in Ontario, Canada, between 2004 and 2007.

"Among patients without pre-existing diabetes, the majority (51 percent) had blood glucose levels on arrival at hospital that were within 'normal' limits but greater than 6.1 millimoles per liter (mmol/L)," Lee said. In the United States, that reading is equivalent to about 110 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL).

Among patients with no prior diagnosis of diabetes, the risk of death within a month was 26 percent higher among patients with slightly elevated blood sugar levels compared to those with normal blood sugar levels. People whose blood sugar levels were nearly high enough to meet the criteria for a diabetes diagnosis had a 50 percent higher risk of death within a month compared to those with normal blood sugar levels, the researchers reported.

The risk of death from cardiovascular disease was also higher among those who had raised blood sugar readings, even if they were just slightly raised above normal, the study found.

Anyone whose blood sugar levels were above normal had an increased risk of developing diabetes later. And, the higher someone's hospital blood sugar reading was, the greater the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

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