HIGH FLYERS AT 50% GREATER RISK
High-flying career women with stressful jobs face a higher risk of heart disease, warn researchers.
Traditionally, men under pressure at work have been the most likely victims of heart attacks, but a study has revealed that some young women are just as likely to end up in the coronary unit.
Those who feel the pressure they are under at work is 'much too high' are 50 per cent more likely to suffer heart disease than women who say their job is manageable.
Even after lifestyle factors such as smoking are taken into account, the additional risk remains high, at 35 per cent.
Women who said work pressures were a 'little too high' were 25 per cent more likely to suffer heart disease, according to the Danish researchers.
The study, published in the journal Occupational And Environmental Medicine, looked at the impact of work pressure on heart disease risk among 12,116 nurses, who were aged between 45 and 64 at the start of the research in 1993 and were followed for 15 years.
By 2008, 580 women had been admitted to hospital with heart disease, of which 138 had suffered a heart attack, 369 had angina and 73 had another type of heart disease.
The strongest risk factors were work pressures and age. Dr Yrsa Andersen Hundrup, who led the study at Glostrup University Hospital in Denmark, said younger women were bearing the brunt of the effect of work pressures on their health - and older women may be less at risk because they had given up their jobs.
Dr Duncan Dymond, consultant cardiologist at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, said: 'The age profile is shifting downwards. We assumed it was the effects of obesity, diabetes and increased rates of smoking coming through, but it could also be stress and other lifestyle issues.
June Davison, cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, warned: 'Feeling under pressure at work means stressed employees may pick up some unhealthy bad habits and add to their risk of developing heart problems.'
