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Rotating night shift work and risk of multiple sclerosis in the Nurses' Health Studies
Kyriaki Papantoniou1, Jennifer Massa2, Elizabeth Devore3
1Department of Epidemiology, Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria kyriaki.papantoniou@meduniwien.ac.at.
Occupational and Environmental Medicine
|August 14, 2019
Summary
Night shift work was not linked to multiple sclerosis (MS) risk in most nurses studied. However, 20+ years of night shifts in one cohort showed a higher risk for definite MS.
Area of Science:
- Epidemiology
- Neurology
- Occupational Health
Background:
- Night shift work is a growing concern in occupational health.
- Previous studies suggest a potential link between night shift work and multiple sclerosis (MS) risk.
- Large-scale prospective studies are needed to clarify this association.
Purpose of the Study:
- To prospectively evaluate the association between rotating night shift work history and the risk of developing MS.
- To analyze data from two large female cohorts: the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) and NHSII.
Main Methods:
- Analysis included 83,992 (NHS) and 114,427 (NHSII) women.
- Incident physician-confirmed MS cases (579 total) were documented.
- Cox proportional hazards models assessed the association between cumulative years of rotating night shifts and MS risk, adjusting for confounders.
Main Results:
- No significant association between rotating night shift work history and MS risk was observed in the NHS cohort.
- In the NHSII cohort, no overall association was found for 1-9 or 10+ years of night shift work.
- However, 20+ years of rotating night shift work in NHSII was significantly associated with an increased risk of definite MS.
Conclusions:
- Overall, rotating night shift work history did not appear to increase MS risk in these large nurse cohorts.
- A notable exception was a history of 20 or more years of rotating night shifts in the NHSII cohort, which was linked to a higher risk of definite MS diagnosis.