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Long Working Days Can Cause Heart Problems, Study Says (theguardian.com)
According to a major new study, long days at the office can be bad for your heart. While the risk of stroke is increased from working too many hours in the office, it seems that working more than 55 hours a week means a 40% higher chance of developing an irregular heartbeat (atrial fibrillation), when compared to those with a better work-life balance. The Guardian reports: The research team, led by Professor Mika Kivimaki from the department of epidemiology at University College, London, analysed data on the working patterns of 85,494 mainly middle-aged men and women drawn from the UK, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Participants were put into groups according to their work pattern, with 35-40 hours a week regarded as the control group. No one had AF at the start of the study, published in the European Heart Journal. After 10 years of follow-up, an average of 12.4 per 1,000 people had developed AF, but among those working 55 hours or more, this figure was higher at 17.6 per 1,000 people. Those working the longest hours were more overweight, had higher blood pressure, smoked more and and consumed more alcohol. But the team's conclusions about longer working hours and AF still remained after taking these factors into account.
Except that for the past few decades, the medical establishment has been shouting "factory workers die of heart attacks because they fry their food in lard and the cholesterol blocks their arteries".
Now that medical research is starting to show that vegetarian office workers are suffering from heart problems, the focus is shifting.
What I have suspected for a long time (I grew up in a working class environment, many neighbours and family members were shift workers in steel and manufacturing industries) is now being confirmed.
Stress (poverty, uncertainty about the future, circadian rhythms disrupted by shift work, danger of accidents, macho culture and violence) exacerbated by the self-destructive "coping strategy" of over-consumption of alcohol ("getting a skinful on Friday and Saturday nights") damages the heart muscles, among other things. Over-consumption of refined carbohydrates (white flour and white sugar especially) play havoc with our metabolism, too.
Salt, dietary cholesterol and animal fats are not the causes that they were claimed to be, and this truth is finally coming out.
Gary Taubes has done a great job in bringing these truths to the public, but there is still much work to be done.