Night shift work appears to be especially risky for black women, according to a new study.
Beginning in 2005 researchers followed 28,041 black women workers over the course of eight years. They found that black women working the night shift were the most susceptible to becoming diabetic under those conditions than any other workers.
None of the women had diabetes in 2005 when the study began. Eight-years-later about 1,800 cases were diagnosed.
The study found that risk for developing diabetes was 42 percent higher for 10 or more years of night work. When body mass index and lifestyle factors were taken into account, the same group of women still had a 23 percent increased risk of developing diabetes.
In general, the black population has a higher risk of diabetes than whites. In the U.S. 35 percent of non-hispanic blacks are at an increased diabetes risk, compared to 28 percent of non-hispanic whites, reported the study.
"In summary we found that African-American women undergoing long-duration night-shift work had a higher risk of incident diabetes," the authors wrote in the study. "There is a need for continued research into facilitating circadian adaptation to shift work and consideration of avoiding shift work in favor of other work arrangements when possible."
The study was published in the journal Diabetologia.
