Assessment of the impact of the inverse rotating scale on the body composition of shift workers

Abstract Change from the daily routine to night work and shift work leads to disturbances in the biological rhythms, which only slowly adapt to the new conditions. The processes, ingestion and metabolism and absorption of nutrients may present themselves in an opposite way in night shift workers, as a consequence of nighttime sleep deprivation causing misalignment of the circadian rhythm and dysregulation of nutrient intake and metabolism[1]. While the deleterious effects of inversion of the circadian rhythm caused by night work seem clear, rotating work schedules can favor physiological balance by reducing the loss of night sleep by diluting the days of night work among all workers on the scale and not to a specific group. Purpose : We describe here the sleep profile, body composition, and basal metabolism in reverse rotating shift workers of operators of a mining company, in order to investigate whether shift work negatively impacts these conditions. Methods : We aimed to assess whether the 4x1 scale model is harmful to the worker. Results : sleep and body composition parameters did not be affect by shift work, not corroborating our hypothesis, that this scale would harm the health of the worker. It was impossible to observe differences in the body composition of shift workers considering only the duration of sleep. Conclusion : Inverse rotating scale model evaluated in this study was interesting for shift workers, since both sleep time and the number of years worked in the shift were not associated with body composition as well as resting metabolism rate.