Browsing by Subject "ateria"

Background and aims Shift work and especially night work has been linked to increased risk for several chronic diseases. In addition to increased disease risk shift work may cause problems with well-being at work and civilian life. The well-being of the shift worker is affected by several areas of life, such as sleep, nutrition, physical activity, social life and stress. The disruption of circadian rhythm is a major factor associated with problems in shift work. The disruption has an impact on body’s physiological responses and it might cause e.g. gastrointestinal and sleep problems. In the future, the meals provided by food services are more important for public health as service hours of the society will be extended and more people are attached to shift and night work. A number of research has been conducted to compare the shift and dayworkers diets. However, very little is known about the nutritional quality of the shift workers diets or about the foods that would be suitable to consume at night time. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of meals created according to the Finnish nutrition recommendations and the regular meal pattern on the well-being at night shift. The well-being was examined from the perspective of alertness, mood and experienced symptoms. Methods The intervention research was conducted as a cross-over trial. There were 19 men (aged between 23 to 61 years old (mean 43 years), BMI between 19,4 to 30,0 kg/m2 (mean 25,9 kg/m2)) participating the study which consisted of two research periods taking four 24-hour periods; the control and the intervention periods. In the two night shifts (12 hours in length) of the intervention period the participants had study meals, which covered out the whole night shift, according to two alternative meal patterns. Food intake was controlled only in the night shifts of the intervention period. Food intake and the amount of sleep was measured by food and sleep diary. The effect of food intake was measured by objective measurements of sleepiness, mood and gastrointestinal and appetite related symptoms. Statistical analyses were performed with the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and the paired samples T-test using IBM SPSS Statistics -program. Results The nutritional quality of the night shifts diet improved at the intervention period compared to the control period. The intakes of energy (p<0,001), dietary fibre (p<0,001) and vitamin C (p<0,001) were greater, the portion of polyunsaturated fatty acids (p=0,033) from the total energy intake was higher and the portion of saturated fatty acids was lower in the intervention period than in the control period. The intake of salt (p=0,003) was greater but compared to the total energy intake there were no differences in salt intakes between research periods night shifts. No differences were observed in the proportions of protein, carbohydrate and monounsaturated fatty acids from the total energy intake or sucrose intakes. Alertness (measured by sleepiness): No differences were observed between the study periods in the sleepiness of the night shifts. Mood: No differences were observed between study periods in the night shifts moods of vigour, tension, fatigue, forgetfulness, depressive, anger, inertia and confusion. Experienced symptoms: An increased flatulence (p=0,017) was observed in the intervention period, which might be caused by the great amount of dietary fibre in the study meals. No differences were observed between research periods in the night shift symptoms of bloating, abdominal pain, nausea, heartburn, lack of appetite, hunger, thoughts of food, fullness and urge to eat. Conclusion The nutritional quality of the diet improved significantly at the intervention period’s night shifts. Respectively, the nutritional composition of the study meals improved the nutritional quality of the entire intervention period compared to the control period. Meals provided by food services can improve the shift working men’s nutritional quality of the diet. In the long term there might be positive effects on health of the employee. The short intervention study did not influence alertness, mood or experienced symptoms at the night shift. In the future the effect of food on alertness and mood could be studied for longer periods. It is important to discover how changing circadian rhythm of a shift worker should be acknowledged at shift work and dining at night. In addition to subjective methods, effects of eating on shift workers well-being should be studied by objective methods, such as cognitive tests or actigraphy.