Life :: Working in shifts shortens life span

Working in shifts throughout the day instead of a normal day job could shorten your life span, an Indian study has found.

A study of 3,912 day workers and 4,623 shift workers of the South Eastern Central Railway in Nagpur showed the former lived 3.94 years longer than their counterparts on shift duties, said the study by Atanu Kumar Pati of the School of Life Sciences in Pt Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur.

“Though the study was conducted on railway employees, it can also be applied to workers in other sectors, including the BPO industry,” Pati told PTI from Raipur.

Shift work affects the circadian rhythm, the 24-hour cycle in the physiological processes of humans that leads to several sleep-related and social problems.

Circadian rhythms are important in determining the sleeping and feeding patterns of all animals, including humans. Brain wave activity, hormone production, cell regeneration and other biological activities are linked to this daily cycle.

Pati and his colleague K Venu Achari analysed a database of dates of death, retirement and death of each worker and published their findings in the latest issue of “Current Science”.

They also studied data on deaths due to all causes of 594 railway employees, including 282 day workers and 312 shift workers, over a span of 25 years. The cause of death was not documented in the database.

An analysis of the data showed that day workers tend to live 3.94 years longer than counterparts working in shifts.


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