13 May 2010
Paris, France
People who work three hours or more of overtime per day run a 60% higher risk of bad heart problems compared to those who work regular hours, a study published in the European Heart Journal said.
The findings came from a longterm research project into 6,014 British civil servants aged 39–61, twothirds of whom were men, who had healthy hearts at the start of the probe in the early 1990s.
At an 11–year monitoring point, 369 of the volunteers had either died of coronary heart disease (CHD) or had had a non–fatal heart attack or angina.
After accounting for risk factors such as smoking, overweight and high cholesterol, doctors found that working between three and four hours of overtime each day was associated with a 60% greater risk compared to those who did no overtime.
Those who worked overtime tended to be slightly younger than the nonovertime group, were likelier to be men rather than women and be in a higher occupational grade.
The medical investigators say that the link between cardiac problems and overtime seems clear but the cause is less so, given the complexities of heart disease and relationships in the workplace. AFP
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