Shift work takes a toll on heart

People who work the graveyard and other non-9-to-5 shifts may face a higher risk of heart attacks, a Canadian review suggests. Shift work disrupts our body clocks and can wreak havoc with work-life balance. But research on its association with health problems like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and Type 2 diabetes has been conflicted, partly because investigators use different methods, populations and definitions. Thursday's issue of the British Medical Journal includes what an Ontario-led team called the "largest synthesis of shift work and vascular risk reported to date."

Physical Activity - The Lancet (UK)

As London counts down the final days before the beginning of the 2012 Olympic Games, The Lancet publishes a Series on physical activity, including a new analysis that quantifies the global impact of physical inactivity on the world's major non-communicable diseases. The Series will also review current levels of physical activity and trends worldwide, why some people are active and why some are not, evidence-based strategies for effective physical activity promotion, and how a multi-sector and systems-wide approach that goes way beyond health will be critical to increase population-levels of activity worldwide

People who walk a lot have lower type 2 diabetes risk: study

Among people at high risk for diabetes who get very little exercise, those who manage to walk more throughout the day are less likely to actually develop the blood sugar disorder, according to a U.S. study. Earlier studies have shown that walking more is tied to a lower risk of diabetes, but few studies have looked into precise measures of how many steps people take each day, said Amanda Fretts, lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle. “Our finding wasn’t surprising given that other studies have shown that even light activity is associated with a lower risk of diabetes,” Fretts wrote in an email to Reuters Health