Abstract
ObjectivesThe aims of this study were to determine if there was an increased risk of incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes and an increase in arterial stiffness in participants who reported working 41–54 h per week and more than 55 h compared to those who worked 40 h or less over a time interval of 5 years.MethodsIn a subsample of the population-based prospective Gutenberg Health Study (GHS) study, we examined working participants younger than 65 years at baseline (n = 7241) and after 5 years. To test the association of working time at baseline and incident cardiovascular events and diabetes type II, we estimated hazard ratios (HR) using competing risks models. For a change in the arterial stiffness index (SI) based on assessment using a Pulse Trace PCA2 device, we used multivariate linear regression models.ResultsThe SI increased in those working more than 55 h per week (beta coefficiant = 0.32 m/s (95% CI 0.07–0.58) compared to those working 40 h and less after adjustment for sex, age and SES. Due to small numbers there was no significant association of working hours and clinically manifest cardiovascular events and diabetes type II in the 5-year follow-up time.ConclusionsFurther studies are needed to confirm the results on working hours and arterial stiffness. Analyses of the 10-year follow-up with more events may clarify the results for incident cardiovascular events and metabolic outcomes.
Highlights
A number of studies have suggested that long working hours may have adverse effects on health in general (Bannai and Tamakoshi 2014)
A significant association between long working hours and diabetes was evident only in the lowest socioeconomic status group with a relative risk (RR) of 1.29
The baseline sample characteristics for the participants included in the analysis of incident cardiovascular diseases (CVD), occurrence of diabetes and change in stiffness index (SI) are presented in Tables 1a and 1b
Summary
A number of studies have suggested that long working hours may have adverse effects on health in general (Bannai and Tamakoshi 2014). Whereas metaanalyses (Kivimäki et al 2015a; Virtanen and Kivimäki 2018; Virtanen et al 2012) and studies in Asian countries (Imai et al 2014; Shin et al 2017) showed an association of long working hours with CVD, recent studies did not find an association in European countries (Hannerz et al 2018a, 2018b, Alicandro et al 2020). A major limitation among the underlying studies of the meta-analyses is the inconsistent assessment of the exposure “long working hours”. Some studies have used reported overtime work in general, while others have assessed daily
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