In news findings presented at the NCRI Cancer Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, a team from the University of Bristol in England suggest that waking up early is linked to a reduced risk of developing breast cancer.
Researchers analysed 180,215 women registered with the UK Biobank project and 228,951 women part of a genome-wide association study of breast cancer led by the international Breast Cancer Association Consortium.
After using a practice called Mendelian randomisations - the process of "using measured variation in genes of known function to examine the causal effect of a modifiable exposure on disease in observational studies" - scientists discovered that women who were morning people are 40 to 48 per cent less likely to develop breast cancer.
Interestingly, sleeping longer than seven to eight hours increased your risk by 20 per cent per additional hour slept.
However more investigating is needed to explain the link between wake up time and breast cancer diagnosis.
"It may not be the case that changing your habits changes your risk of breast cancer; it may be more complex than that," says Rebecca Richmond from the University of Bristol in a statement.
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