Blame Thomas Edison. The inventor of the light bulb, when you get right down to it, can shoulder the blame for some potentially frightening health possibilities facing 11 million workers.
They're those who work (cue heavy organ-music chords here) - the graveyard shift.
Research is showing that these creatures of the night - nurses, bakers, firefighters, transportation workers, factory employees, police officers, 24-hour help-deskers and others - might encounter several serious risks:
? International researchers, analyzing results of 34 studies, found that shift work was associated with a 23 per cent increased risk of heart attack among more than two million night-, evening-and rotating-shift workers, the British Medical Journal reported. Among night-shift workers only, that number rose to 41 per cent. Interestingly, shift work was not associated with increased death rates.
? Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital Division of Sleep Medicine found that among workers with pre-diabetes conditions, the disease is more likely to develop in night workers than those who work days.
Additionally, sleeping at "abnormal times" and not getting enough sleep leads to lower metabolism and higher spikes in blood sugar.
? Teens who work "off-hour employment" before age 20 may be at risk for multiple sclerosis due to changes in their sleep patterns and disruption of their circadian rhythms, according to the Karolinska Insti-tutet in Stockholm.
So perhaps the maligning of Edison - "the person to blame, obviously," says Dr. David Luterman, medical director and director of the Baylor Sleep Center in Dallas - now makes more sense.
"When it was dark, there was nothing to do but sleep," Luterman says.
"Then the light bulb came, and then Henry Ford puts in shifts all over the place. Then radio, which was entertainment in your own home. Then the TV."
Which led, of course, to overnight jobs, to off-kilter sleep schedules and to health problems that go bump in the night.
First though, a caveat: While these shifts can lead to serious health issues, they're not a work-all-night given.
"It can mess up your life," Luterman acknowledges. "But not everybody who does shift work is affected. About 20 per cent have significant problems doing it. There's no rhyme or reason who will or won't."
Every cell in our bodies, he says, has a biological rhythm. The brain has a master clock that trains us to be awake during the day and asleep at night. Thus, when light and dark are out of whack, so are we - if we're not careful.
"Simply put, the human body is designed and wired to respond to diurnal cues that have to do with nature's clock: daylight and night-time," says Gerry Jacob.
He's CEO of Wellfirst Sleep Diagnostics, whose sleep centres throughout North Texas evaluate and treat people with sleep issues.
Upending that by working at night or by alternating sleep and wake shifts can lead to dysfunction, Jacob says.
For instance, it throws off production of melatonin - the hormone responsible for rest.
As far as causing obesity and other problems, Luter-man says he is unsure of the correlation.
There is one, he says, "but I don't know the physiology of it.
"Hormones, insulin, things like that are secreted in diurnal variation," Luter-man says.
"When you do shift work, you're opposing some of your normal hormone stasis equilibrium."
One problem is that people get their nights and days mixed up, he says.
"They work at night, but try to revert back to daytime on their days off. If you try to reverse, you'll have a hard time doing it.
You have to shift your sleep schedule."
