Friday, 17 September 2010

Unfit men working long hours dual risk of heart death


Unfit men who work long hours are more than twice as probable to die of heart disease as unfit men who work shorter hours, according to new research. By gap, fit men who work long hours are not more likely to die of heart disease, the research found.
It is well known that long working hours are bad for but it has not been clear if physical fitness levels have any crash on the attendant rates of disease and death. The findings are based on 5,000 Danish men, aged 40 to 59, who between them worked in 14 different companies, and whose heart health and physical fitness levels were after tracked over 30 years.
Participants completed a cycling exercise stress-test and provided details on the standard number of hours they worked every week. More than two-thirds of the men clocked up between 41 and 45 hours a week, and approximately one in five worked more than this. During the monitoring period, 587 of them died (11.9 per cent) as a result of ischaemic heart disease.
Men working 41 to 45 hours a week were 59 per cent more likely to die of heart disease, but not more likely to die of other causes than men working less hours. Physically fit men working longer hours were 45 per cent less likely to die of heart disease and 38 per cent less likely to die of other causes than persons who were unfit. “The results that working more than 45 hours a week is connected with more than a doubled risk of (death from heart disease)among men with low physical fitness, and not among men with moderate or high physical fitness, is a new surveillance,” the study’s authors commented.

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