Working long hours ’raises heart attack risk’
Links: - UCL Epidemiology & Public Health - Research paper in Annals of Internal Medicine - Medical Research Council Working more than 11 hours a day increases your risk of heart disease by 67 per cent, compared with those working a standard 7-8 hours a day, according to a new UCL study. The authors suggest that information on working hours could be useful to GPs when calculating a patient's risk of heart disease, alongside other health measures such as blood pressure, diabetes and smoking habits. The research, led by Professor Mika Kivimäki (UCL Epidemiology & Public Health) and funded by the Medical Research Council, used data from the Whitehall II study which has followed the health and wellbeing of over 10,000 civil service workers since 1985. For this study, men and women who worked full time and were free of heart disease or angina at the start of the study were selected, a total of 7095 study participants. The researchers collected information on heart risk factors, such as age, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, smoking habits, and diabetes. They also asked participants how many hours they worked (daytime and work brought home) on an average weekday. During the 11-year follow-up, the researchers collected information about heart health, including those who had suffered from heart attacks, from medical screenings every 5 years, hospital data, and health records.
