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American Morning

House Call: Night Shift Tied to Colon, Breast Cancers in Women

Aired June 04, 2003 - 07:53   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Being on the job while most everyone else is asleep obviously has a lot of drawbacks. We could tell you about that. Now there's word and a link reported, though -- on a more serious note -- between working at night and cancer, especially for women.
Our medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is here with our "House Call"...

(CROSSTALK)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Yes. Well, this is one of those stories that is going to make you go, huh? How does this all work? Fifteen-and-a-half million Americans work graveyard shifts, night shifts, and that's been going on for quite some time. And they have found in the past that maybe there's a link between these graveyard shifts and cancer. People believe breast cancer might be a link, and that was quite a while ago.

Now, there is a new study, a very large study, looking at over 78,000 women. This is all women, a nurse's study, and they looked back and found that there might be, in fact, a link between graveyard shifts, night shifts, and colon cancer.

Take a look at some of the numbers here. The numbers actually increased 35 percent colon cancer risk if you work night shifts at least three times per month 15 years or longer. So, if this is a way of life for you, this could possibly be a cancer risk.

Now, the question everyone asks is: How does this work? Why does this even make sense? Well, melatonin, that is a substance that your body produces. If you're exposed to sunlight during the day and then you sleep at night and not exposed to light at night. If you alter that somehow by exposing yourself to artificial light during the nighttime, your melatonin production goes down.

That's important, because there are several reasons that melatonin might actually be good for you. Melatonin has been long been believed, again, sort of in the pop medical culture that it may, in fact, have some anti-cancer properties.

Take a look at the list of the things that it does. It's made in the pineal gland. That's a gland in the brain. It regulates your sleep. If you get too much or too little, your sleep is going to be off. That's why people sometimes take it during long flights. It's possibly an antioxidant. This is where it gets into its anti-cancer properties. And it possibly regulates reproduction and aging, and it's linked to sleep affective disorders.

Daryn, for a long time estrogen was sort of the hormone that people believed was linked to most women's cancers. Melatonin might be the new hormone that people are going to start looking at. Not there yet, but this is a very important study, a very large study, melatonin obviously a very important player.

KAGAN: Just real quickly, does that mean people shouldn't work at night or they should compensate?

GUPTA: Well, it might be that they need to take more melatonin during the day. They may need to take medications to try and counteract some of that. They're not quite ready to make that leap yet, but we might be getting there. We'll keep on eye on that.

KAGAN: OK, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.




Women>


Aired June 4, 2003 - 07:53   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Being on the job while most everyone else is asleep obviously has a lot of drawbacks. We could tell you about that. Now there's word and a link reported, though -- on a more serious note -- between working at night and cancer, especially for women.
Our medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is here with our "House Call"...

(CROSSTALK)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Yes. Well, this is one of those stories that is going to make you go, huh? How does this all work? Fifteen-and-a-half million Americans work graveyard shifts, night shifts, and that's been going on for quite some time. And they have found in the past that maybe there's a link between these graveyard shifts and cancer. People believe breast cancer might be a link, and that was quite a while ago.

Now, there is a new study, a very large study, looking at over 78,000 women. This is all women, a nurse's study, and they looked back and found that there might be, in fact, a link between graveyard shifts, night shifts, and colon cancer.

Take a look at some of the numbers here. The numbers actually increased 35 percent colon cancer risk if you work night shifts at least three times per month 15 years or longer. So, if this is a way of life for you, this could possibly be a cancer risk.

Now, the question everyone asks is: How does this work? Why does this even make sense? Well, melatonin, that is a substance that your body produces. If you're exposed to sunlight during the day and then you sleep at night and not exposed to light at night. If you alter that somehow by exposing yourself to artificial light during the nighttime, your melatonin production goes down.

That's important, because there are several reasons that melatonin might actually be good for you. Melatonin has been long been believed, again, sort of in the pop medical culture that it may, in fact, have some anti-cancer properties.

Take a look at the list of the things that it does. It's made in the pineal gland. That's a gland in the brain. It regulates your sleep. If you get too much or too little, your sleep is going to be off. That's why people sometimes take it during long flights. It's possibly an antioxidant. This is where it gets into its anti-cancer properties. And it possibly regulates reproduction and aging, and it's linked to sleep affective disorders.

Daryn, for a long time estrogen was sort of the hormone that people believed was linked to most women's cancers. Melatonin might be the new hormone that people are going to start looking at. Not there yet, but this is a very important study, a very large study, melatonin obviously a very important player.

KAGAN: Just real quickly, does that mean people shouldn't work at night or they should compensate?

GUPTA: Well, it might be that they need to take more melatonin during the day. They may need to take medications to try and counteract some of that. They're not quite ready to make that leap yet, but we might be getting there. We'll keep on eye on that.

KAGAN: OK, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.




Women>