Few studies have explored whether shift work makes individuals prone to neurodegenerative diseases ( 6, 7), but shift work frequently disrupts biological rhythms and sleep, and such disturbances propagate a slew of pathobiological changes that contribute to neurodegeneration ( 8). The burden of shift work is striking: Shift workers are not only at increased risk of accidents ( 4), they are also disposed to developing numerous diseases, including certain cancers, coronary heart disease, stroke, and type-two diabetes ( 5). Following industrialisation, however, people can more easily work outside of conventional daytime hours, and 15–20% of the working population now work shifts ( 3). Prior to the introduction of artificial light at night, these two clocks were probably tightly synchronised ( 1, 2). The other clock is the endogenous biological clock, which among other rhythms generates roughly 24-h (circadian) rhythms in biological outputs such as the sleep/wake cycle. Simplistically, our species once lived by two “clocks.” One of these clocks is the environmental clock, which generates roughly 24-h changes in the light/dark (LD) cycle. Integrating findings from behavioural science and ergonomics may help shift workers make healthier choices, thereby amplifying the beneficial effects of improved lifestyle prescriptions for these people. Finally, the impact of these advances will be reduced without modifications to work environments to make it easier for shift workers to engage in behaviours conducive to their health. Non-invasive, multimodal, comprehensive phenotyping using multiple sources of time-stamped data may yield insights that are critical to the care of shift workers. Going forward, developments in phenotyping and “envirotyping” methods may be important to understanding how to optimise shift work. We focus in particular on the importance of diet timing and composition. We know little about how different zeitgebers interact and how to tailor zeitgeber schedules to the needs of individuals however, in this review we share some guidelines to help shift workers adapt to their work schedules based on our current understanding of circadian biology. While light exposure is the most important zeitgeber for the central clock in the circadian system, diet and exercise are plausible zeitgebers for circadian clocks in many tissues. Because of this, understanding how to alter shift work and zeitgeber (time cue) schedules to enhance circadian system function is likely to be key to improving the health of shift workers. Disruptions to the circadian systems of shift workers are considered important contributors to the biological dysfunction these people frequently experience. Shift work is commonplace in modern societies, and shift workers are predisposed to the development of numerous chronic diseases.
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