This study aimed to elucidate the effects of long-term day and night shifts on liver function and lipid metabolism in a group of nurses.
This cross-sectional study in December 2019 was based on a group of nurses. A total of 1,253 physically healthy caregivers were included, including 1231 women and 22 men. A total of 886 nurses had long-term shift work (working in a rotating system for >1 year). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate factors related to long-term shift work.
We observed differences in liver and kidney indicators between the non-night and night shift groups. The ROC curve revealed that CHO (AUC: 62.4%), LDLC (AUC: 62%), and GLUO (AUC: 61.5%) were more related to the night shift. Logistic regression analysis showed that night shift work was associated significantly with CREA (log (OR) = −0.02, 95% CI: −0.04 to −0.01), CHO (log (OR) = −0.38, 95% CI: −0.67 to −0.09), and GLUO (log (OR) = −0.35, 95% CI: −0.56 to −0.17). This correlation was observed only for CHO and LDHC (CHO: log (OR) = −0.55, 95% CI: −0.98 to −0.12; LDLC: log (OR) = 0.83, 95% CI: 0.32, 1.4) after age standardization. After using propensity score matching, we did not find evidence to support that the indicators differed between night and non-night shift groups.
Our study observed an association of long-term night work with abnormal liver and kidney function and dyslipidemia, but the difference was not significant after strict age matching. Although these findings may support interventions for long-term night shift nurses, more detailed studies are needed to confirm.