Breast Cancer Risk Higher In Women Working Night Shifts

Breast Cancer Risk And Night Work

Breast cancer risk is higher among women who have worked at night, a new study has found.

French researchers recently examined the effect of night work on the health of 3,000 women and found out that the risk of developing breast cancer was 30% higher in those who had worked nights (compared to those who had never worked nights).

This increased risk was particularly marked in women who had worked nights for over four years, or in women whose working rhythm was less than 3 nights per week, because this led to more frequent disturbances between night and day rhythms, the researchers said.

The results of a study were recently published in the International Journal of Cancer.

"Our work has corroborated the results of previous studies and poses the problem of taking night work into consideration in public health management, especially since the number of women working atypical hours is on the increase," said Pascal Guénel, the main author of the study.

Breast cancer remains the number one cause of death in women. It affects 100 out of 100,000 women per year in developed countries. Each year, there more than 1.3 million new cases of breast cancer that are diagnosed.