Association of Night Shifts and Lifestyle Risks With Incident Dementia

Background: Little is known about the combined relationship between night shifts and lifestyle risks with incident dementia or their potential interactions. To evaluate the association of night shifts and lifestyle risks with incident dementia and further analyze their interactions. Methods: A total of 276 059 participants were included in this study from the UK Biobank cohort. Cox proportional hazards models were used to investigate the combined association of night shifts and lifestyle risks with incident dementia. Results: Participants with always night shifts and 3 or 4 unhealthy lifestyle factors had the highest risk of incident all-cause dementia (hazard ratio: 3.15, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.74-5.69). An additive interaction was found between night shifts and lifestyle risks for incident allcause dementia (p <.001), with a relative excess risk due to the interaction of 0.14 (95% CI: 0.11-0.45). The attributable proportions of the combined effect on the incidence of all-cause dementia were 22.6% (95% CI: 20.91%-26.75%) for night shift work, 65.0% (95% CI: 63.12%69.80%) for unhealthy lifestyle factors, and 12.1% (95% CI: 8.67%-18.04%) for their interaction. Conclusions: Both night shifts and lifestyle risks were associated with a higher risk of incident dementia. The combined impact was higher than the increase in the risks related to each single factor. Our results indicated that most incident dementia cases might be prevented by a healthy lifestyle, and the benefits would be greater among night shift workers. Further studies are needed to confirm our results and explore the underlying mechanisms.

Automated summary

This study investigated the combined relationship between night shifts and unhealthy lifestyle risks with incident dementia and found that the combination of night shifts and unhealthy lifestyle factors increased the risk of dementia. The combined impact was greater than the individual effects of each factor, suggesting that a healthy lifestyle could prevent most cases of dementia, with greater benefits for night shift workers.