Background:Night shift work has been associated with an increased risk for breast and prostate cancer. The effect of circadian disruption on sex steroid production is a possible underlying mechanism, underinvestigated in humans. We have assessed daily rhythms of sex hormones and melatonin in night and day shift workers of both sexes. Methods: We recruited 75 night and 42 day workers, aged 22-64 years, in different working settings. Participants collected urine samples from all voids over 24 hours on a working day. Urinary concentrations of 16 sex steroid hormones and metabolites (estrogens, progestagens and androgens) and 6-sulfatoxymelatonin were measured in all samples. Mean levels and peak time of total and individual metabolite production were compared between night and day workers. Results: Night workers had higher levels of total progestagens (geometric mean ratio (GMR) 1.65; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.17, 2.32) and androgens (GMR: 1.44; 95% CI 1.03, 2.00), compared to day workers, after adjusting for potential confounders. The increased sex hormone levels among night shift workers were not related to the observed suppression of 6-sulfatoxymelatonin. Peak time of androgens was significantly later among night workers, compared to day workers (testosterone: 12:14 h; 10:06, 14:48 vs 08:35 h; 06:52, 10:46). Conclusions: We found increased levels of progestagens and androgens as well as delayed peak androgen production in night shift workers, compared to day workers. Impact: The increase and mistiming of sex hormone production may explain part of the increased risk for hormone-related cancers observed in night shift workers.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 11. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 22 January 2023.
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Outputs of similar age from Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention
#14
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Altmetric has tracked 34,350,842 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 86th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 6,183 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 16.4. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 72% of its peers.
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