
AsianScientist (Sep. 18, 2014) – Working more than 52 hours a week could put you at risk of developing heart disease, according to a study of 8,350 full-time employees in Korea. This research has been published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.
Although many instinctively assume that working long hours is bad for health, the studies that provide concrete evidence for this idea have typically been done in small sample sizes and yielded inconclusive results. Now, a study of more than 8,000 Koreans lends support to the hypothesis that overworking is harmful, showing that the number of over-time hours worked is proportional to the risk of coronary heart disease.
Using data from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey IV (2007–2009), the research team led by Dr. Hong Yun-Chul from Seoul National University correlated the number of hours worked with the risk of coronary heart disease as estimated by the Framingham risk score (FRS).
“The longer hours employees worked, the higher their chances of developing coronary heart disease within 10 years, with those working 61 to 70 hours having a 42 percent increased likelihood of developing the disease, those working 71 to 80 hours having a 63 percent increased likelihood, and those working more than 80 hours having a 94 percent increased likelihood,” said Dr. Hong.
They also found that working more than 52 hours a week was correlated with increased smoking, problem drinking and diabetes. Interestingly, although women in general were less likely to be affected by coronary heart disease, long working hours had a stronger impact on their heart health, with their odds ratio of developing coronary heart disease going up to 4.65 fold as working hours increased, compared to 1.47 fold among men. The authors suggest that this could be due to the additional domestic burdens that women face.
The article can be found at: Kang et al. (2014) Long Working Hours May Increase Risk of Coronary Heart Disease.
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