While not getting enough sleep is completely fine for many people, a new test suggests that poor sleeping patterns could be a huge factor in getting diagnosed with cancer.
According to BBC News, the new test emphasizes concerns about the detrimental effects and health risks acquire from working on shift hours that highly contributes to irregular sleeping patterns.
Researchers also suggest that families with a history of cancer, particularly women who are more prone to breast cancer, should never work on shift hours.
"If you had a situation where a family is at risk for breast cancer, I would certainly advise those people not to work as a flight attendant or to do shift work," researcher Gijsbetus van der Horst from the University Medical Centre in the Netherlands said.
Reports say that the apparent link of a human's health to cancer could be pointed to several factors, including the interruption of the body's internal time scheme termed as 'body clock', social class and activity levels.
Considering that getting insufficient sleep is deemed as a public health epidemic, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) suggests that people should sleep the same time each night and the same time each morning to be able to build a 'healthy sleep hygiene'.
"This is the first study that unequivocally shows a link between chronic light-dark inversions and breast cancer development," the reports stated.
Dr. Michael Hastings of the United Kingdom's Medical Research Council said that the outcome of the study proposes definitive experimental proof in the increasing rate of breast cancer cases.
"The general public health message coming out my area of work is shift work, particularly rotational shift work is a stress and therefore it has consequences... There are things people should be looking out for - pay more attention to your body weight, pay more attention to inspecting breasts, and employers should offer more in-work health checks,"
