Study: Long Office Hours Raises Heart Disease Risk

(Sky News) - Workers who spend longer in the office could be at greater risk of heart disease, a study found Tuesday.

People who work an 11-hour day compared to those who work a standard seven or eight hours increase their risk of heart disease by 67 percent, according to researchers at University College London (UCL).

They said the findings could be useful to doctors when calculating a patient's risk of heart disease alongside other indicators, such as blood pressure, diabetes and smoking.

The research tracked 7,095 British public service workers aged between 39 and 62 for 11 years. Over the course of the study, 192 participants suffered a heart attack.

Andrew Steptoe, the British Heart Foundation professor of psychology at UCL, said, "Even if you take those factors into account, finding out how long people work adds to our understanding of heart disease."

"This could be to do with stress, or it could be to do with other factors in peoples' lives -- if you are spending 11 hours at work you are spending less time with the people you may love and like to be with. But we do know that work is associated with increases in stress hormones and various other biological changes which might themselves increase the risk of heart disease," he added.

Source: Sky News