3 ms·

So night shifts cause cancer[1] but sleepless nights not an early death? Seems very unlikely. [1] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320554.php https:/

• pessimizer 8y ago
  Agreed; it seems very unlikely that night shifts cause cancer. Seems more likely that the people working night shifts are either (or all of the below plus): - more in debt than people who work day shifts (the primary cause of debt in the US is medical), and are working night shifts for the differential pay; - that people working night shifts are less qualified than people who work day shifts at the same salaries, lower qualifications are easy to associate with relatively lower class origins, and sickness goes up as class goes down (lack of preventative care, tougher living conditions) - or something as trivial as that people who work night shifts smoke more. At night, there are fewer customers and there's more time between customers. There's generally lower staffing, so both fewer coworkers to annoy with your smoke and fewer coworker conversations to distract you from your need for a cigarette. Also, poorer people smoke more. Why does everyone assume that any correlation is causal, direct, and (a specific callout) completely unrelated to class?
  • swsieber 8y ago
    Becuasw generally we are bad at probabilities at scale. For this however, probably because of followup studies. 1) injecting mice woth cancerous cells and controlling their sleep. In sleep restricted mice it hit faster and harder 2) Sleep impairment is known to increase pathway activity that cancer uses for growth like inflammation