Shift work raises obesity risk

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Sleeping too little or sleeping "against" your body's natural biological clock could increase the likelihood of developing diabetes or becoming obese , according to a study from Brigham and Women's Hospital researchers in the journal Science Translational Medicine.While the study was small -- it only included 21 people! -- the findings are valuable because it was a controlled study, meaning it placed people in an environment where scientists decided how much sleep they got each day, and what time they were able to go to sleep."Since night workers often have a hard time sleeping during the day, they can face both circadian disruption working at night and insufficient sleep during the day," study researcher Orfeo M. Buxton, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said in a statement. "The evidence is clear that getting enough sleep is important for health, and that sleep should be at night for best effect."