Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia discovered that men may be more vulnerable to disruption of the biological rhythms that occur during night work. The research was published in the journal Science Translation Medicine.
Using data from more than 90,000 shift workers in the UK, the researchers found that men were more vulnerable to biological clock disruptions. Men working the night shift were 10% more likely to have metabolic syndrome, a set of risk factors for heart disease and diabetes, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and blood sugar, and excess visceral fat accumulating in the body, than men who worked regular hours. viscera.
Shift workers also had a greater risk of metabolic syndrome than women who only worked standard hours. However, the changes in them were less harmful than in the men. Laboratory experiments pointed to a role for estrogen: Sterilized and therefore non-estrogen-producing female mice were less protected from the effects of disturbed day and night cycles than female mice with normal estrogen production.