TRAVEL NURSING NEWS
A collection of nursing news for the ultimate travel nurse!

Article Date: 01/09/2009

Glasses for Night Shift Workers Show Great Health Benefits
Night shift has had quite a toll on many nurses in numerous ways, such as increasing the risk of illnesses and causing sleep disruptions. Illnesses range anywhere from breast cancer to heart disease. While night is when humans are supposed to be in darkness, nurses working in night shifts have exposure to large amounts of light. Nocturnal light has been known from researchers to have several effects such as disrupting critical hormone levels, which can cut the levels of melatonin that slows cancer growth. It also causes stress by increasing the amount of the stress hormone cortisol. Other than this hazard, the reasons for the health effects are unknown. However, now medical researchers in Ontario have developed a way that they think will decrease the fluctuating hormone levels and disruptions of the body's internal clock - through glasses. They are spectacles that look like normal glasses, but have a coating that gives them a yellow tint. The coating, which can be applied to lenses of prescription glasses and nonprescription glasses, stops the wavelengths of light in the blue part of the spectrum, which is responsible for the hormone alternations. Although first time users will see things with a slight yellowish hue, the user is quickly able to adapt and distinguish colors easily.

The Ontario government feels the innovation is so promising that they are helping to fund the commercialization of the glasses, which are estimated to cost around $100 to $150 a pair, and should be out sometime this year. The lenses are already getting very positive feedback from night shift workers - a nurse who had worked nights for 10 years stated that the glasses have "made a world of difference for me, my function level."

Website Address: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090109.wlshiftwork09/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home

MORE NURSING NEWS ARTICLES

TRAVEL NURSING NEWS
Read all the news you want here at Travel Nursing News!
Travel Nursing news gives you one source to find all the nursing news on-line.