Carotid intimal medial thickness in rotating night shift is related to IL1β/IL6 axis

Sleep disturbances may promote glucose abnormalities and inflammatory burden among shift workers. Therefore, precocious subclinical atherosclerotic process might develop in healthy shift workers even without known metabolic and cardiovascular risk factors.

We measured anthropometric parameters, glucose, lipids, inflammation and common carotid Intimal Medial Thickness (cIMT) in rotating-night shift workers (r-NSW, n = 88, age = 40.3 ± 7.8 y) in comparison with former-night shift workers (f-NSW, n = 35, age = 44.2 ± 6.4 y) and with day-only workers (DW, n = 64, age = 44.1 ± 8.9 y). R-NSW and f-NSW showed significantly higher cIMT and high sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hs-CRP) respect to DW (p = 0.043 and p = 0.025, respectively). IL-1β levels were higher in r-NSW than in DW and f-NSW (p = 0.043) and significantly correlated with IL6 (r = 0.365, p < 0.001). In addition, r-NSW and f-NSW had higher HbA1c levels in comparison with DW (p = 0.047). Carotid-IMT was significantly related to night shift work (p = 0.023), with age (p < 0.001), with HOMA IR (p = 0.009), with insulin (p = 0.006) with HbA1c (p = 0.002), with LDL cholesterol (p < 0.001), with diastolic BP (p < 0.001), with WBC (p = 0.002) and with IL6 (p = 0.004). After performing a multivariate analysis night shift work remained statistically related to cIMT (B = 2.633, 95%CI = 0.489-4.776, p = 0.016).

Our result described a possible link bridging night shift work, inflammation and carotid Intimal Medial Thickness. Future studies are warranted to understand if carotid atherosclerosis process should be mainly driven by the IL1β/IL6 citokine axis connected to sleep disturbances.