Our circadian rhythms, or body clocks, are governed by light-dark cycles and play an important role in human health. However, shift work, or working outside of the hours of 7 AM to 6 PM, results in a desynchronization of these rhythms.1 This dysregulation is implicated in multiple human disorders including cancers, metabolic disease, obesity, diabetes, and vascular diseases.2-5 However, existing studies are unable to separate disease risk from other factors such as smoking or socioeconomic status. With remote work becoming the norm, the study of inconsistent sleep-wake schedules and their effect on our health will only become more important.
David Earnest, a professor at the Texas A&M Health Science Center, is interested in circadian rhythms and their effect on the cardiovascular system. “It was really only about 10 or 15 years ago that studies really started to come forward, particularly human epidemiological studies, to show that people doing shift work ...
