To be eligible, participants must be male shift workers or male non shift workers aged between 25-45 years-old.

In today ™s 24/7 society, work and social obligations can adversely affect the timing, duration and quality of sleep. One such demand resulting from today ™s society is the need for shift work.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of one night of total sleep deprivation, as is experienced during the first night of a night shift, on a range of metabolic, inflammatory and cardiovascular and neurobehavioural responses. The responses of shift workers will be compared to those on non shift workers. It is hoped that valuable knowledge will be gained, in particular for those who skip a night ™s sleep, for instance, night shift workers.

Previous research has indicated that doing shift work is not without risk and it has been shown to have consequences for the health and wellbeing of an individual, both acutely and in the long term. Sleep deprivation during a night shift can acutely decrease alertness and performance. Doing shift work for a number of years has, for example, been associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). An increased risk of developing CVD has, in part, been shown to be due to elevation of hormone and lipid responses, and is related to changes in the inflammatory system.

Susceptibility to the effects of sleep deprivation is also likely to differ between people. These differences may be a result of the amount of shift work done in the past, lifestyle, sleep patterns and genetics.

Sophie Wehrens, the lead researcher comments: Today ™s 24/7 society puts a very high pressure on people ™s sleep patterns. Many people realise this may affect their health, but we do not know exactly how. In addition, it is obvious that not everyone responds in the same way to skipping a night ™s sleep. We are therefore very interested to investigate responses to sleep deprivation in the well controlled conditions of our lab. This hopefully will enable us to characterise these responses and to understand the mechanisms underlying them.

surrey.ac

genetic test results showing a gene mutation: BRCA 1 or 2, Li-Fraumeni syndrome, Cowden syndrome or Bannayan-Riley-Ruvalcaba syndrome first-degree relative (parent, child, sibling) with one of the above mutations (if the woman has not yet been tested) lifetime breast cancer risk of 20 to 25 percent or greater on an accepted risk assessment tool predominantly based on family history history of radiation therapy to the chest (between the ages of 10 and 30)

M. D. Anderson has been following these guidelines for the past three years among women at high risk in our Clinical Cancer Genetics program, says Arun.

At this time, it is unknown whether an MRI is beneficial for women at high risk who do not meet any of the above criteria. For most women, MRI scans have not yet been shown to be beneficial for breast cancer screening.

Women should speak with their health care provider to determine if they are at high risk of developing breast cancer and if an MRI scan would be appropriate. A woman's health care provider can help her determine what screening tests are appropriate. Women also should check with their health insurance company to see if the cost of a screening MRI is covered.

mdanderson