Many who work the overnight shift still swear by it

Scientists recently said this lifestyle increases the chance of contracting cancer.

Yet those who live it say it cuts stress in the office, eases child-care dilemmas and sometimes expands the paycheck.

It's the overnight shift.

About 3 percent of U.S. employees - nearly 3.2 million - work overnight, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This month, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, said that shift is "probably" carcinogenic.

"That means the evidence is pretty strong, but it's not so much that you're absolutely sure," said Aaron Blair, a U.S. scientist who led the study.

A handful of local overnight workers who say they're in good health are not convinced.

"My first reaction was, I'm not sure I believe the first report that comes out," said Kevin Kelly, 53, of Virginia Beach, who drives a taxi three overnights a week. "There's probably going to be more studies that say otherwise."

Alton Glass, president of United Steelworkers Local 8888, spent 26 years working the 11 p.m.-7 a.m. shift at the Newport News shipyard. "If I ever stop being president, I want to go back to the third shift," Glass, 50, said.

"It worked for me and my wife. It especially worked for the kids. One of us was always with them, and we've got a very tight-knit family today."

Nevertheless, research has linked overnight shifts, often by way of sleep deprivation, to a range of ills: greater chance of obesity and gastrointestinal problems, higher divorce rates, and more severe work injuries.

So for Dr. J. Catesby Ware, the chief of sleep medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, the cancer finding was "no surprise."

Sylvia Canada walked the halls of Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center in Norfolk one morning, dropping off paperwork at the end of her shift.

The hospital was still. Not another soul passed her. She likes it that way.

Canada, 60, has been the overnight nursing supervisor for the past 15 years.

"Everyone laughs at me, but I love the night shift," she said. "You don't have all the phones ringing; you don't have all the departments calling. The visitors are limited. You have time to spend with the patients."

Her position, unique to the overnight shift, mixes administrative responsibilities with patient care, such as starting tricky IVs - "that's my forte."

At home, Canada sleeps in two shifts: from 9 to noon and from 6 to 9 p.m. That allows her to eat lunch and dinner with her husband, who is retired.

"We have quality time together," she said, "and yet it's not a whole lot of time for us to get on each other's nerves."

Donna Linder, a nurse at Chesapeake General Hospital, began working overnights 20 years ago to avoid "farming out" her young children:

"My husband would get them up and ready for school. I would come home, make sure they would get on their buses and then go to bed. By the time they came home, I had 5 to 6 hours of sleep. I made them dinner, helped them with homework and then left for work."

It's not always so smooth.

Linder had to miss some of her children's sports activities. Kelly, the driver with Norfolk Checker Taxi, spends less time with his three children than he'd like. "Sometimes it interrupts your life."

Janie O'Connor, president of Shiftworker.com, a St. Paul, Minn., group that advises managers and employees, said overnight workers must make compromises: "They can tell their kids, 'We can go to this game but not this one.' Or, 'You can videotape the game and show it to me Saturday night.' "

Linder's children are grown, and she still's on the night shift. In the afternoon, she can pay bills, see a film, have lunch with friends, go to the beach.

The charge nurse in the hospital's emergency room, Linder appreciates the different atmosphere at night. During the day, she said, some people use the emergency room in lieu of a doctor's office.

At night, "you have people who are seriously ill," said Linder, 55, who lives in Chesapeake. "We like to deal with sick people. Treating people with sore throats - that's not emergency room nursing."

A common complaint from overnighters: The rest of the world pays them little consideration.

"Everyone wants to call you or do something in the middle of the day," said Troy Merritt, 39, of Chesapeake, a conductor for Norfolk Southern Corp., who often leaves his phone off the hook when he sleeps.

For the cancer study, Blair said, his panel reviewed previous studies to reach its conclusions.

Women who worked overnights had nearly 50 percent more chance of getting breast cancer. For men, the incidence of prostate cancer was almost 30 percent greater. "The relative risks aren't huge," said Blair, a retired senior investigator for the U.S. Cancer Institute, "but they were big enough to be concerned about."

The likely reason: Working nights disrupts the body's biological clock. The body needs the dark to produce melatonin, an anti-oxidant that shields cells from the corrosive effects of oxygen.

Local overnight workers who were interviewed say they're healthy and haven't noticed a greater incidence of cancer among co-workers. Yet some of their problems have been connected to their shift.

Canada has slightly elevated blood pressure, which EVMS' Ware said can be linked to sleep disorders. Glass was diagnosed with diabetes. which he said runs in the family, but O'Connor said it's also more common among overnight workers.

So are depression, divorce and gastrointestinal disorders, she said. Her Web site also cites a European study that found the severity, but not the number, of workplace injuries grew overnight.

Dr. Cynthia Romero, a primary care physician and past president of the medical staff at Chesapeake General, said she has not noticed higher rates of cancer in overnight workers. She said she has seen greater incidence of obesity, sleep problems and fatigue, though.

Linder can attest to the weight issues.

She gained 25 pounds her first year on the shift. Her three meals became dinner, munchies at work and a junk-food breakfast when she got home. She has dropped the weight - and kept it off - by taking vegetables to work and eating fruit and yogurt for breakfast.

As for the cancer finding, "people should not get completely overwhelmed by the sense that this might be a probable carcinogen," Blair said. "Life is full of risks. It's best to worry about the main things that affect our lives."

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com