People who work at least 55 hours a week have a 40% higher risk of developing this type of cardiac arrhythmia.
Work is health. To do nothing is to keep it. Not sure that the maxim is fully verified on a scientific level, but Henri Salvador was undoubtedly right on one point: work addicts do not make old bones.
Workaholics are in fact more exposed to atrial fibrillation, the most common type of cardiac arrhythmia. It would appear that working time is a risk factor, according to a study carried out at St Antonius Hospital in Nieuwegein (Netherlands), and published in the journal European heart journal.
An additional risk for heart patients
Scientists analyzed data collected on several cohorts representing a total of more than 85,000 people from the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. They found that working more than 55 hours per week, instead of 35 to 40 hours, increased the risk of developing atrial fibrillation by 40%. A result that persists even after eliminating confounding factors, such as smoking, alcohol consumption or obesity.
“A 40% increase in risk is not negligible for people already at cardiovascular risk due to other factors such as age, being a man, diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol, overweight, smoking , physical inactivity or even a pre-existing cardiac pathology, explains Prof. Mika Kivimaki from the epidemiology department at University College London (United Kingdom), who commented on the study. For people in good health, young and free from these factors, the risk associated with long working hours remains low. “
Five times the risk of stroke
Atrial fibrillation is not a dangerous condition in itself. It is a heart rhythm disorder that affects 1% of the population under the age of 60, but still more than 10% of people over the age of 80. It manifests itself by an acceleration or a disturbance of the rhythm of contraction of the atria. Many pathologies can promote it, such as hypertension, coronary artery disease, hyperthyroidism or diabetes.
But it represents a significant risk factor for developing another circulatory disease. For example, it doubles cardiovascular mortality, promotes heart failure and sudden death from ventricular fibrillation. But it is above all the risk of thrombosis, that is to say the formation of a clot which will obstruct a blood vessel. Atrial fibrillation thus increases the risk of stroke by 5.
It could therefore be “a mechanism explaining the previous observations of increased risk of stroke in people working long hours”, interprets Professor Kivimaki.
Businessmen and crowd leaders work to lose their temper, and die of heart disease. It is very rare among pétanqueurs. Henri Salvador was ahead of science, it seems.
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