With a recent study in this journal, Hansen and Lassen1 followed a promising path to answer pressing questions with regard to postulated causal links between shift work and cancer.2 By employing diurnal preference to characterise the individual's chronobiological propensity to work and sleep or rest, the authors may have used a marker of susceptibility to stress and strain experienced by individuals who work at chronobiologically unusual times. This novel approach may have captured information relevant to the undefined link, namely 'circadian disruption', in the 'probable' chain of cancer causation in shift workers which experts of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) identified in 2007.3 Here is why and how we could diligently follow-up on this thought-provoking case-control study.
展开▼
