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Work and Stress Causes Deadly Damage
Overview
Stress incurred from a job is so apt to become chronic because one’s work is such a large portion of daily life. Stress reduces an employee’s effectiveness by interfering with concentration; increasing susceptibility for illness, back problems and lost time. At its worst, job stress can impose a severe strain on the heart and circulation as to be fatal. Because it is so common in their country, the Japanese created a special word for sudden death from overwork – karoushi.
Research Shows Common Thread Among People Experiencing Job Stress
Workers who have no control over their circumstances and feel frustrated.
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Workers who do not receive the support they need to perform properly.
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In an era of downsizing, lack of job security, diminished benefits for employees.
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Meeting high demands for performance without receiving adequate wages for services.
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Long hours, difficult commute, office politics, conflict between co-workers.
Americans Are Working Longer and Harder
A 1999 government report found that the number of hours worked increased 8% in one generation to an average 47 hrs/week with 20% working 49 hrs/week. U.S. workers put in more hours on the job than the labor force of any other industrial nation. According to an International Labor Organization study, Americans put in the equivalent of an extra 40-hour workweek in 2000 compared to ten years previously.
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
A 1992 United Nations Report labeled job stress "The 20th Century Disease" and a few years later the World Health Organization said it had become a "World Wide Epidemic." According to NIOSH, 40% of job turnover is due to stress.
Occupational Pressures Are Believed Responsible For
Study Links Work Stress with Early Signs of Heart Disease and Diabetes
A new British study surveying over 10,000 government workers in London has found that early stage symptoms of heart disease and diabetes are more common among people who report chronic work stress. A main focus of the study (which administered health exams several times over 14 years) was centered on work stress generating the warning signs of metabolic syndrome – a collection of abnormalities that often progresses to diabetes and heart disease, two of the world’s biggest killers.
Study subjects rated how demanding their job was, how much control they exercised over their work and what degree of support they received from their co-workers. Those workers reporting very demanding jobs with little control and low support more than 75% of the time were more likely to develop metabolic syndrome. The researchers concluded that workers with chronic stress were over twice as likely to have metabolic syndrome than those employees without work stress.
The Symptoms of Metabolic Syndrome
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Abdominal obesity (apple shape excess weight).
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High level of blood lipids (fat).
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Elevated blood pressure.
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Low level of high-density lipoprotein "good" cholesterol (HDL).
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Elevated blood sugar after fasting
(signals resistance to insulin -- the hormone regulating blood sugar).
Job Stress Linked to Inflammation of the Heart in Two Studies
A study has found workers with high levels of job stress have increased levels of an inflammatory marker linked to heart disease. Scientists found those workers who felt they had little or no control in their jobs had high levels of fibrinogen (a blood-clotting factor associated with heart disease and heart attacks).
Another study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine examined (through blood tests and questionnaires) 892 workers in Belgium looking for a correlation between job stress, job control and social support. After considering other factors (age, smoking, alcohol use, use of medications) the issue of job control was significantly consistent with elevated fibrinogen levels (a blood-clotting factor associated with heart disease and heart attacks).
Job Stress and Incidence of Cardiovascular Disease
In a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology (2006 Jun; 163/11/Suppl 1/S215),the results show that a high level of job stress is predictive of CVD incidence in older workers, and has important implications for the prevention of CVD-related health problems in the workplace.
Psychological Job Demands Increase the Risk of Ischemic Heart Disease
A 14-year study (part of the World Health Organization-initiated MONICA II study) was conducted of Danish men that included a clinical examination of 659 men, all employed and without known ischemic heart disease (IHD), together with a questionnaire-based evaluation of living conditions and psychosocial factors at work. Study findings indicate that high psychological demands at work are a risk factor for IHD, a fact that should stimulate the primary and secondary prevention of IHD. Also, an unexpected finding was that the incidence of IHD was highest among employers and managers.
Job Stress and Major Coronary Events
21,111 middle-aged male subjects participated between 1993 and 1996 in the baseline survey of the Job Stress, Absenteeism and Coronary Heart Disease in Europe (JACE) study. During a mean follow-up of 40 months, 185 acute coronary events or coronary deaths were observed. In this epidemiological study, the Karasek job strain model was an independent predictor of acute coronary events, with the psychological demands scale emerging as the important component.
Job Stress and the Risk of Coronary Heart Disease
In a study of British civil servants (published in the American Journal of Public Health) comprising 6,895 men and 3,413 women aged 35 to 55 years, scientists found that the imbalance between personal efforts (competitiveness, work-related over commitment, and hostility) and rewards (poor promotion prospects and a blocked career) was associated with a 2.15-fold higher risk of new coronary heart disease.
Job Stress May Harden Men's Arteries
A new study suggests that middle-aged men who are under significant job stress may develop hardening of the arteries at a faster rate than men who work in low-stress jobs. In the study, conducted at a California utility company, men between the ages of 40 and 60 who reported high job stress had a 36% chance of having signs of atherosclerosis in their carotid arteries. Only 21% who reported low job stress had signs of atherosclerosis.
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Sources: Differences in Cortisol Awakening Response on Work Days and Weekends in Women and Men from the Whitehall II cohort Psychoneuroendocrinology 2004 May;29(4):516-28 Job Strain and Recurrent Coronary Heart Disease Events Journal of the American Medical Association 2008;299(5):520 Journal of the American Medical Association 2007;298(14):1652-1660 Job strain, Social Support at Work, and Incidence of Myocardial Infarction Occupational and Environmental Medicine 1998 Aug;55(8):548-53 What is the metabolic syndrome? (www.americanheart.org) Metabolic Syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org) Metabolic Syndrome Psychological Job Demands Increase the Risk of Ischaemic Heart Disease: a 14-year Cohort Study of Employed Danish Men European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention & Rehabilitation 13(3):414-420, June 2006
(www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus)
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