Long-term night shifts may double breast
cancer risk
Working night shifts for more than 30 years can
double a woman's risk of developing breast cancer, scientists have warned. In a
study published in the British Medical Journal, Canadian researchers assessed
whether night shifts were linked to an increased risk of breast cancer.
They studied 1,134 women with breast cancer and
1,179 women without the disease, but of the same age, in Vancouver, British
Columbia, and Kingston, Ontario. Shift work has been suggested as a risk factor
for breast cancer, but there has been some doubt about the strength of the
findings, largely because of issues around the assessment of exposure and the
failure to capture the diversity of shift work patterns.
Several previous studies have also been confined
to nurses rather than the general population. The women, who had done various
different jobs, were asked about their shift work patterns over their entire
work history, hospital records were used to determine tumour type.
This may be important, said the authors, because
risk factors vary according to hormone sensitivity, and the sleep hormone
melatonin, disruption to which has been implicated in higher breast cancer risk
among night shift workers, may boost oestrogen production.
Around one in three women in both groups had
worked night shifts. There was no evidence that those who had worked nights for
up to 14 years or between 15 and 29 years had any increased risk of developing
breast cancer.
But those who had worked nights for 30 or more
years were twice as likely to have developed the disease, after taking account
of potentially influential factors, although the numbers in this group were
comparatively small. The associations were similar among those who worked in
healthcare and those who did not. Risk was also higher among those whose
tumours were sensitive to oestrogen and progesterone.
The suggested link between breast cancer and
shift work has been put down to melatonin, but sleep disturbances, upset body
rhythms, vitamin D or lifestyle differences may also play their part, said the
authors.
"As shift work is necessary for many
occupations, understanding which specific shift patterns increase breast cancer
risk, and how night shift work influences the pathway to breast cancer, is
needed for the development of healthy workplace policy," they concluded.
03.07.2013
Now, space software to identify Alzheimer's disease
Software for processing satellite pictures taken from space
may help medical researchers to establish a simple method for wide-scale
screening for Alzheimer's disease. Used in analysing magnetic resonance images
(MRIs), the AlzTools 3D Slicer tool was produced by scientists at Spain's
Elecnor Deimos.
The researchers drew on years of experience developing
software for European Space Agency's Envisat satellite to create a programme
that adapted the space routines to analyse human brain scans. Working for ESA,
the team gained experience in processing raw satellite image data by using
sophisticated software routines, then homing in on and identifying specific
elements."Looking at and analysing satellite images can be compared to
what medical doctors have to do to understand scans like MRIs," said
Carlos Fernandez de la Pena of Deimos.
"They also need to identify features indicating
malfunctions according to specific characteristics," he said.The tool is
now used for Alzheimer's research at the Medicine Faculty at the University of
Castilla La Mancha in Albacete in Spain. "We work closely with Spanish
industry and also with Elecnor Deimos though ProEspacio, the Spanish
Association of Space Sector Companies, to support the spin-off of space
technologies like this one," said Richard Seddon from Tecnalia, the
technology broker for Spain for ESA's Technology Transfer Programme.
"Even if being developed for specific applications, we
often see that space technologies turn out to provide innovative and
intelligent solutions to problems in non-space sectors, such as this
one."It is incredible to see that the experience and technologies gained
from analysing satellite images can help doctors to understand Alzheimer's
disease," Seddon said. Using AlzTools, Deimos scientists work with raw
data from a brain scan rather than satellite images. Instead of a field or a
road in a satellite image, they look at brain areas like the hippocampus, where
atrophy is associated with Alzheimer's.
03.07.2013
Life is a
dream for the wise, a game for the fool
Sholom Aleichem
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