Healthy living may counteract effects of job strain: study

London – Living a healthy lifestyle may reduce negative effects on the heart caused by job strain, according to a study from University College London.

Researchers grouped more than 100,000 men and women from the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Sweden and Finland into three categories – healthy, moderately unhealthy or unhealthy – based on smoking, obesity, exercise and other factors, the study abstract states.

Workers with job strain and a healthy lifestyle had about half the risk as similarly stressed workers who were unhealthy – with a coronary artery disease rate of 15 per 1,000 compared with 31.2 per 1,000, according to a press release from the Canadian Medical Association, which published the study online May 18 in its journal.

Researchers suggested clinicians consider lifestyle risk factors in patients with job strain as well as provide stress counseling.