Long working hours have recently been on the radar of health experts and researchers. Previously, it has been linked to increased smoking and coronary heart disease. (More: Long Working Hours Linked to Increased Smoking)
"The pooling of all available studies on this topic allowed us to investigate the association between working hours and diabetes risk with greater precision than has been previously possible," said Kivimaki."Although working long hours is unlikely to increase diabetes risk in everyone, health professionals should be aware that it is associated with a significantly increased risk in people doing low socioeconomic status jobs," Kivimaki said.To arrive at the conclusion, the team closely examined accumulated data from four pre-published studies and 19 studies with unpublished data involving 22,2,120 men and women from the US, Europe, Japan, and Australia who were followed for an average of 7.6 years. It was noted that individuals doing low on the socioeconomic status, who also worked 55 hours or more per week had a roughly 30 per cent increased risk of developing diabetes compared to their counterparts who worked between 35 and 40 hours a week, even after taking into account health behaviours such as smoking and physical activity and other risk factors like age, sex, and obesity.The experts concluded that long working hours when coupled with low socioeconomic status may put working professional at the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The study also revealed that this association remained strong even after excluding shift work, which has been shown to increase the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes. The team suggested a number of possible explanations especially disruptive schedules that leave little time to take part in health restoring activities like as sleeping, unwinding, and exercise.
"The pooling of all available studies on this topic allowed us to investigate the association between working hours and diabetes risk with greater precision than has been previously possible," said Kivimaki."Although working long hours is unlikely to increase diabetes risk in everyone, health professionals should be aware that it is associated with a significantly increased risk in people doing low socioeconomic status jobs," Kivimaki said.To arrive at the conclusion, the team closely examined accumulated data from four pre-published studies and 19 studies with unpublished data involving 22,2,120 men and women from the US, Europe, Japan, and Australia who were followed for an average of 7.6 years. It was noted that individuals doing low on the socioeconomic status, who also worked 55 hours or more per week had a roughly 30 per cent increased risk of developing diabetes compared to their counterparts who worked between 35 and 40 hours a week, even after taking into account health behaviours such as smoking and physical activity and other risk factors like age, sex, and obesity.The experts concluded that long working hours when coupled with low socioeconomic status may put working professional at the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The study also revealed that this association remained strong even after excluding shift work, which has been shown to increase the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes. The team suggested a number of possible explanations especially disruptive schedules that leave little time to take part in health restoring activities like as sleeping, unwinding, and exercise.
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