Working more than
eight hours a day raises the risk of heart disease by up to 80 per cent, a new
study has revealed.
Researchers said that long
working hours could be condemning thousands of employees to heart attacks and
strokes.
The warning follows analysis of
12 studies dating back as far as 1958, involving a total of 22,000 people from
around the world.
The analysis, by scientists at
the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, found that those whose working
days that were longer than the traditional eight hours had a 40 to 80 per cent
greater chance of heart disease.
The size of the increase varied
depending on how each study was carried out.
The effects were more pronounced
when participants were asked how long they worked for - but when researchers
closely monitored working hours, the increased risk of heart disease was closer
to 40 per cent.
Lead researcher Dr Marianna
Virtanen said the effects could be due to "prolonged exposure to
stress."
Other triggers could be poor
eating habits and lack of exercise due to restricted leisure time.
Middle-aged workers putting in 55
hours or more a week had poorer brain function than those clocking up no more
than 40 hours, with lower scores on tests to measure intelligence, short-term
memory and word recall.
Britons work some of the longest
hours in Europe, with full-time employees averaging 42.7 a week.
Those in Germany typically work
for 42 hours, while Danes do 39.1.
It estimated that more than five
million people a year in Britain work unpaid extra hours to hang on to their
jobs.
But the long-term toll on
workers' health could be devastating, the new research suggests.
"There are several potential
mechanisms that may underlie the association between long working hours and
heart disease," the Daily Mail quoted Dr Virtanen as saying in a report on
the findings.
In addition to prolonged exposure
to psychological stress, she said other triggers could be raised levels of the
stress hormone cortisol, poor eating habits and lack of physical activity due
to restricted leisure time.
Source : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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