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Doing the night shift throws the body "into chaos" and could cause long-term damage, warn researchers.
做夜班工作讓身體「陷入混亂」，可能造成長期傷害，研究人員警告。
Shift work has been linked to higher rates of type 2 diabetes, heart attacks and cancer. Now scientists at the Sleep Research Centre in Surrey have uncovered the disruption shift work causes at the deepest molecular level. Experts said the scale, speed and severity of damage caused by being awake at night was a surprise.
一直以來，夜班工作被指與第二型糖尿病、心臟病發與癌症罹患率較高有關。現在薩里的「睡眠研究中心」科學家發現，夜班工作造成分子層最深層的混亂。專家說，晚上醒著造成的傷害，在規模、速度與嚴重性上都讓人驚訝。
The human body has its own natural rhythm or body clock tuned to sleep at night and be active during the day. It has profound effects on the body, altering everything from hormones and body temperature to athletic ability, mood and brain function.
人體有自己的自然節奏，或稱生理時鐘，會在夜晚進入睡眠，白天保持活躍。這對身體有深層影響，會改變從荷爾蒙、體溫到運動能力、心情與大腦功能的所有東西。
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, followed 22 people as their body was shifted from a normal pattern to that of a night-shift worker.
這項刊登在「美國國家科學院院刊」的研究，追蹤身體從正常模式轉變為夜班工作人員模式的22人。
Blood tests showed that normally 6％ of genes were precisely timed to be more or less active at specific times of the day. Once the volunteers were working through the night, that genetic fine-tuning was lost.
血液檢測顯示，正常來說，6％基因一天內較活躍或較不活躍的時間都非常精確。一旦志願者整晚工作，這種基因的微調就會消失。
新聞辭典
uncover：動詞，揭露。例句：The investigation uncovered evidence of a large-scale illegal trade in wild birds.（調查發現大規模違法野鳥貿易的證據。）
profound：形容詞，深深的，深切的。例句：My grandfather has a profound mistrust of anything new or foreign.（我爺爺對於新東西或是外國事物非常不信任。）
severity：名詞，嚴重性。例句：I don’t think you quite understand the severity of our financial problems.（我認為你不是很了解我們金融問題的嚴重性。）
本文引用自 自由時報電子報 http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/
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