Working Long Hours Can Raise the Risk of This Disease

Working long hours can have detrimental effects on health — from increased stress to higher rates of certain chronic diseases. Now, in the latest study exploring the effect of extended work hours, researchers say that type 2 diabetes may be one of them. Mahee Gilbert-Ouimet, an epidemiologist and postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Work and Health in Toronto, and her colleagues analyzed data from a database of more than 7,000 workers in Canada who were followed for more than 12 years to better understand whether work hours can affect the risk of diabetes. In the study, published in BMJ Diabetes Research & Care, they report that women working more than 45 hours a week had a 51% higher risk of developing diabetes during the study period compared to women working 35 to 40 hours a week. (That was after the scientists adjusted for other potential factors that could affect diabetes risk, including physical activity, BMI and smoking.) They did not see the same effect in men; in fact, men working longer hours seemed to have a lower risk of developing diabetes compared to men working fewer hours. “I was surprised to see the somewhat protective effect of longer working hours among men,” says Gilbert-Ouimet. “Among women, we know women tend to assume a lot of family chores and responsibilities outside the workplace, so one can assume that working long hours on top of that can have an adverse effect on health.” They found, for example, that the ef...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized diabetes healthytime Source Type: news