New study findings confirm what some office managers,
senior management officials and other white-collar
workers have suspected for years: working in highly
stressful jobs can increase your blood pressure.
"We found that cumulative exposure to job strain
resulted in significant increases in systolic
blood pressure among male white-collar workers,
especially those with low levels of social support
at work," Dr. Chantal Guimont, of Laval University,
in Quebec City, Quebec, and her colleagues write
in this month's American Journal of Public Health.
Some of the studies assessing the impact of job
strain on blood pressure have yielded conflicting
results, so Guimont and her colleagues looked
at the issue again in a study of 6,719 men and
women white-collar workers, aged 18 to 65 years,
in Quebec City.
These participants completed a questionnaire
about their physical activity level, smoking history
and other potential items that might increase
their risk of high blood pressure and cardiovascular
disease, as well as about their family history
of the two conditions, and characteristics of
their work and social life. They also had several
measurements of their blood pressure.
At follow-up, 7.5 years later, men who were exposed
to high levels of job strain throughout the course
of the study had blood pressures that were nearly
two points above that of men with no exposure
to job strain -- an increase comparable to that
observed among men with sedentary behavior.
In particular, men with the most job strain were
33 percent more likely to experience an increase
in blood pressure.
What's more, men with a high level of job stress
at follow-up, who initially reported no such stress,
had similarly increased blood pressures, the researchers
report; those with high levels of job strain at
follow-up only were 40 percent more likely to
have increased blood pressures.
The association was similar for women, but the
effects were more pronounced among men, the researchers
note.
In other findings, men and women with low levels
of support from their supervisors and/or co-workers
were at an even higher risk of increased blood
pressure. In fact, among those with high social
support, high levels of job stress did not appear
to be associated with increased blood pressures.
"These results suggest that primary interventions
aimed at reducing job strain may have significant
effects on blood pressure," Guimont and her colleagues
conclude.
SOURCE: American Journal of Public Health, August
2006.
