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In a world that never sleeps, humans, too, have adapted to live and work around the clock. Just like men, women often find themselves working odd shifts, including the night shift. But guess what? Although such odd shifts may benefit their careers, they also come with numerous health risks. Women on night shifts are especially prone to illnesses. A new study found that women who work night shifts are more likely to suffer from asthma compared to those who work in the regular daytime.

Drawbacks of women working night shifts

The study is led by researchers at the University of Manchester, UK. The findings are published in the  .

The study involved more than 270,000 people and found that women working night shifts are more likely to suffer from moderate or severe asthma. However, they found no such link between asthma and working night shifts in men.

Dr Robert Maidstone, the lead researcher, in a statement, said, “Asthma disproportionately affects women. Women generally have more severe asthma, and a higher rate of hospitalisation and death from asthma compared to men. In our previous research, we found a higher risk of moderate or severe asthma in nightshift workers, so we wanted to see whether there were further differences between the sexes.”

The study

To investigate the relationship between night shifts and asthma in women, the researchers utilized data from the UK Biobank. They looked at 274,541 working people and found that 5.3% of these had  , with 1.9% suffering from moderate or severe asthma (meaning they were taking an asthma preventer inhaler and at least one other asthma treatment, such as an oral steroid). The researchers divided the women into three categories - those who worked only during the day, only nightshifts, or a combination of the two.

What did they find

The findings were shocking. They found that women who work shifts are more likely to have asthma. Women who only work night shifts were around 50% more likely to suffer from moderate or severe asthma compared to those who work in the daytime.

“This is the first study to evaluate sex differences in the relationship between shift work and asthma. We found that permanent night shift workers had higher odds of moderate-severe asthma when compared to corresponding day workers. This type of research cannot explain why shift work and asthma are linked; however, it could be because shift work disrupts the body clock, including the levels of male and female sex hormones. High testosterone has previously been shown to be protective against asthma, and so lower testosterone in women could play a role. Alternatively, men and women work different types of shift jobs, and this could be a factor,” Dr Maidstone said.

The researchers also found that the risk was almost double in postmenopausal women, compared to day workers, in those not taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
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“Our results suggest that HRT might be protective against asthma for nightshift workers; however, further research is needed to test this hypothesis in prospective studies and randomised controlled trials,” Dr Maidstone added.