Adherence
Adhering to a healthy lifestyle (normal BMI, non-smoking, high physical activity, high diet quality) significantly reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes, and this benefit is magnified for individuals who work rotating night shifts.
If you work rotating night shifts, your lifestyle choices are your strongest defense against type 2 diabetes. Focus on maintaining a healthy weight, not smoking, staying physically active (at least 30 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity daily), and eating a high-quality diet. The study indicates that these healthy habits provide a greater protective benefit for night shift workers than for day workers, effectively offsetting much of the increased risk associated with shift work.
These findings suggest that most cases of type 2 diabetes could be prevented by adhering to a healthy lifestyle, and the benefits could be greater in rotating night shift workers.
Why this rating
Large prospective cohorts (NHS and NHS II) with long follow-up (22-24 years) and rigorous adjustment for confounders, though observational design limits causal inference.
Source
Rotating night shift work and adherence to unhealthy lifestyle in predicting risk of type 2 diabetes: results from two large US cohorts of female nurses
Zhilei Shan et al. · BMJ · 2018
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