Working Nights May Increase A-Fib Risk

The scientists looked at information from over 283,000 persons in the Biobank dataset for the investigation and discovered that individuals who performed nighttime jobs on a regular or continuous basis had a 12 percent greater risk of a-fib than others who were exclusively employed throughout the day.

Long shifts on the late shift may put you at risk for atrial fibrillation (A-fib), a serious heart rhythm problem, according to a new study.

Working Nights May Increase A-Fib Risk

“Although a study like this cannot show a causal link between night shifts and atrial fibrillation and heart disease, our results suggest that current and lifetime night shift work may increase the risk of these conditions,” said study co-leader Yingli Lu, from Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital and Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, in China.

Individuals who had worked nights throughout their whole professional lifetime were 18 percent more likely, and individuals who performed 4 to 8 late shifts per month for ten years at most were 22 percent more likely.

The data was checked with the help of sampling and many people who are used to have a night shift in different industries had been checked for this research. The result was found almost similar in each case even though they were from different industries and age groups as well as geographical locations. 

This means that the bio mechanism is getting affected when the human bio cycle is disturbed which happens when you work at night also. You feel deprived of natural sleep that can affect the overall functionality of your body and disturb the rhythm of the heart to a great extent explained one of the experts. 

“Our findings have public health implications for preventing atrial fibrillation. They suggest that reducing both the frequency and the duration of night shift work may be beneficial for the health of the heart and blood vessels,” Lu explained.

The research was posted in the European Heart Journal on August 10th.

According to Qi, “There were two more interesting findings. We found that women were more susceptible to atrial fibrillation than men when working night shifts for more than 10 years. Their risk increased significantly, by 64%, compared to day workers”. 

Dr. Lu Qi, a lecturer at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, is the study’s co-leader.

“People reporting an ideal amount of physical activity of 150 minutes a week or more of moderate-intensity, 75 minutes a week or more of vigorous-intensity, or an equivalent combination, had a lower risk of atrial fibrillation than those with non-ideal physical activity when exposed to a lifetime of night shift work. Thus, women and less physically active people may benefit particularly from a reduction in night shift work,” he said in a journal news release.

Long hours could increase the incidence of atrial fibrillation, according to our data. We discovered that people who worked long hrs.are 40 percent more prone than individuals who worked conventional hours to acquire this cardiac arrhythmia.

Lu added, “We plan to analyze the association between night shift work and atrial fibrillation in different groups of people. This may strengthen the reliability of these results and serve as a warning to groups working in certain types of occupations to get their hearts checked early if they feel any pain or discomfort in their chest.”

Because the link between long hours and fibrillation appears to be irrespective of recognized atrial fibrillation risk factors, more study is necessary to understand the processes behind the link. Although there is no basis to believe that the link is geographically dependent, the generalization of our results to other nations must yet be established.