Study finds women who work at night more likely to have asthma

Miami Herald

16-06-2025

By Stephen Beech
Women who work night shifts are more likely to have asthma, according to new research.
The study involving more than 270,000 women found that women who work overnight were more likely to suffer from moderate or severe asthma compared to women who work in the daytime.
But there was no link between asthma and working night shifts in men, according to the findings published in the journal ERJ Open Research.
Study leader Dr. Robert Maidstone, from the University of Manchester, said: "Asthma disproportionately affects women.
Women generally have more severe asthma, and a higher rate of hospitalisation and death from asthma compared to men.
"In our previous research, we found a higher risk of moderate or severe asthma in nightshift workers, so we wanted to see whether there were further differences between the sexes."
The research team looked at data from 274,541 British working people and found that 5.3% of them had asthma, with 1.9% suffering from moderate or severe asthma, meaning they were taking an asthma preventer inhaler and at least one other asthma treatment, such as an oral steroid.
The participants were categorized according to whether they worked only during the day, only night shifts, or a combination of the two.
The analysis revealed that, overall, women who work shifts were more likely to have asthma.
Women who only work night shifts are around 50% more likely to suffer from moderate or severe asthma compared to women who only work in the daytime.
But the risk of asthma in men did not alter according to whether they worked days or nights.
Dr. Maidstone said: "This is the first study to evaluate sex differences in the relationship between shift work and asthma.
"We found that permanent night shift-workers had higher odds of moderate-severe asthma when compared to corresponding day workers.
"This type of research cannot explain why shift work and asthma are linked; however, it could be because shift work disrupts the body clock, including the levels of male and female sex hormones.
"High testosterone has previously been shown to be protective against asthma, and so lower testosterone in women could play a role.
"Alternatively, men and women work different types of shift jobs, and this could be a factor."
The study also found that in postmenopausal women, the risk of moderate or severe asthma was almost doubled in night workers, compared to day workers, in those not taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
Dr. Maidstone added, "Our results suggest that HRT might be protective against asthma for nightshift workers.
"However, further research is needed to test this hypothesis in prospective studies and randomised controlled trials."
Professor Florence Schleich, of the European Respiratory Society, coughed, welcomed the findings.
Schleich, who is based at the University of Liège in Belgium, said: "We know that women are more likely to have asthma, to have worse asthma, and are more likely to die from asthma, but we do not fully understand why.
"This research suggests that working night shifts could be a risk factor for asthma in women, but not in men.
"The majority of workers will not have an easy option of switching their shift pattern, so we need further research to verify and understand this link and find out what could be done to reduce the risk for women who work shifts."
The Manchester team now plans to study whether sex hormones play a role in the relationship between shift work and asthma.
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