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July 18, 2012
(MedPage Today) Women who have a lot of stress at work appear to have a greater cardiovascular risk than those with lower-stress jobs, an analysis of the Women's Health Study showed. Both active jobs and those with a high level of strain were associated with a 38% greater relative risk of having a cardiovascular event through 10 years of follow-up, according to Michelle Albert, MD, MPH, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and colleagues.
High job strain, in particular, was associated with higher rates of nonfatal {heart attacks} and {heart revascularization procedures} the researchers reported online in PLoS One. "With the increase of women in the workforce, these data emphasize the importance of addressing job strain in cardiovascular disease prevention efforts among working women," they wrote.
Previous studies exploring the relationship between workplace stress and cardiovascular disease risk have yielded mixed results, ...Further adjustment for symptoms of depression or anxiety and for a full range of traditional cardiovascular risk factors eliminated many of the associations, although active jobs were still associated with a greater risk of any cardiovascular event and high-strain jobs were associated with an elevated risk of heart attack. There was no relationship between job insecurity and long-term {heart} risk, however.
Albert and colleagues said that job strain could contribute to heart risk either through the behavioral responses to stress -- including smoking and depression -- or through physiological processes like stress-induced hypertension or metabolic syndrome. In addition, chronic stress may result in dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the autonomic nervous system, which could have adverse biological effects.
The authors noted that more studies are needed on this issue and acknowledged some limitations of their own analysis, including the relatively homogenous study population (mostly white female health professionals), the measurement of job strain and job insecurity at a single time point, and the potential for residual confounding from unmeasured factors.
The Women's Health Study is supported by grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Cancer Institute. From the American Heart Association:
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/MyocardialInfarction/33809
Also see the 2011 Guidelines for CVD Prevention in Women below
http://my.americanheart.org/professional/General/2011-Guidelines-for-CVD-Prevention-in-Women_UCM_425066_Article.jsp
Posted By: Jen Fad
Friday, July 20th 2012 at 11:11PM
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