Study Establishes Connection Between Job Stress And Heart Disease Risk

It has long been known that emotional stress can lead to harmful behaviors – smoking, poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, etc. – that in turn increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. Now Spanish researchers who studied more than 90,000 workers undergoing medical check-ups report that job stress is linked to the way fatty acids are metabolized in the body. Those who said they had experienced difficulties with their jobs during the past 12 months (about nine percent of the total group) had a higher risk of suffering from dyslipidemia, a condition involving high total cholesterol and high LDL, high blood fat levels, and low HDL (“good cholesterol”), all factors for heart disease.