Even if we do take care of our physical and mental health, having a stressful job greatly increases the chance of a heart attack, a study has found.
Having a stressful job raises the risk of a heart attack by almost a quarter, compared to having a job that is less demanding, according to pan-European research.
The shocking research also shows that stressful highly paid jobs appear to raise the risk of a heart attack more than those that are similarly taxing, yet lower paid. People are obviously feeling more pressure when there is more money involved…
The study found those in higher paid stressful jobs were more than 50 per cent more likely to have a heart attack than those in less stressful positions.
This places even more emphasis on the fact that we should take care of ourselves mentally and physically.
Researchers at the University College London took into account the differences in age, sex and health lifestyle before calculating their estimates of risk.
That means that among a group of “healthy” people, which means eating well, exercising regularly and not smoking, those who had stressful jobs would still be at a relatively higher risk of a heart attack. This definitely drew a few gasps.
Mika Kivimäki, from UCL said, “Our findings indicate that job strain is associated with a small, but consistent, increased risk of experiencing a first coronary heart disease event such as a heart attack.”
The researching team looked at results from 13 studies in seven countries which tracked the health of nearly 200,000 people.
He said; “Our findings suggest that prevention of workplace stress might decrease disease incidence; however, this strategy would have a much smaller effect than would tackling of standard risk factors, such as smoking.”
Professor Peter Weissberg, a medical director at the British Heart Foundation said it is how we deal with the pressures at work that will make a difference to our health.
“Though stresses at work may be unavoidable, how you deal with these pressures is important, and lighting up a cigarette is bad news for your heart.
“Eating a balanced diet, taking regular exercise and quitting smoking will more than offset any risk associated with your job.”
The study was published online in The Lancet today.
