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A new analysis of 12 previous studies in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine finds that “people who work night shifts, or constantly changing shifts are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes compared to non-shift workers,” Reuters reports.

“Shift work includes working nights, evenings, rotating shifts or irregular shifts – anything other than working typical daytime hours, the authors note. Based on their analysis, the risk of diabetes was increased by 9 percent overall for shift workers, compared to people who had never been exposed to shift work. Male shift workers had a 28 percent greater risk of developing diabetes than their female counterparts. And people who worked rotating shifts had a 42 percent greater risk of diabetes compared to non-shift workers.”

Said Dr. Peter Butler: “The overall literature in this subject right now has been fairly convincing that there is in fact an association between a misalignment of circadian rhythm and risk for diabetes.”

“It’s not known how long the participants in those studies had been shift workers, which limits the authors’ ability to interpret their results. The new analysis doesn’t prove that shift work causes diabetes or explain how it might do so, they acknowledge.”