Do you feel your occupation is out of step with societal norms? If so, you might be at increased risk of heart disease and death from all causes, according to the Framingham Offspring Study.
 While there was no link between high-stress jobs (those with high responsibility but low authority) and death or heart disease, there was a significant link between heart disease and jobs that differed from traditional social roles. House-husbands, men with lower incomes and lower education levels, and women employed in high-demand high-authority jobs were found to have a significantly higher risk of death.
"These findings may indicate that people who perform work or social roles incongruent with what is socially expected suffer greater heart disease and death. Perhaps those men and women on the cutting edge of social norms experience negative health consequences," says Elaine D. Eaker, ScD, principal investigator on this study.
House-husbands At Risk
Men who identified themselves as house-husbands had an 82 percent higher risk of death over a 10-year period compared to men who worked in traditional jobs. This finding was independent of typical risk factors such as age, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, body mass index, smoking, and diabetes.
Men with earnings of $10,000 or less per year had twice the risk of death as men earning $50,000 or more. Men with high-prestige professions – such as doctors, lawyers, and teachers – had significantly lowered risk. And men who were separated or no longer married – no matter the cause – were nearly two times more likely to die from any cause.
Symptoms Reversed For Women
The opposite was true for women: Those in high-prestige jobs were nearly three times more likely to have heart disease or die. The increased risk was independent of their responsibilities at home, how many children they had, or their emotional stress level (anxiety, depression, anger).
The researchers based their conclusions on results from the Framingham Offspring Study, a study of nearly 4,000 descendants of the famous Framingham Heart Study, which began in 1948 and follows over 5,000 residents of Framingham, Massachusetts. |
