A Danish study found that middle aged adults who barely exercise and work for more than 40 hours a week have higher health risk than those who work with fewer hours.
Work time refers to the paid amount of hours a person spent on his job. It does not include works brought to home or out of the office time. It ranges from 6 to 12 hours of work per day and from 36 to 48 hours per week. Variation occurs with different countries and different companies.
The average working time in Denmark is 37 hours per week. In the population covered in the study, about 70% men work between 41 to 45 hours and about 20% of the male workers have more than 45 hours of work time.
Researcher wanted to determine the effects of length of working time and physical condition of the person to his health and possible health risks.
The study observed a population of 40-59 years old men working in the country. About 5,000 men participated in the study. The team of researchers from the National Research Centre for Denmark’s Working Environment spent 30 years in conducting the study.
The study posted in Heart journal shows findings that prove the strong linkage of poor physical condition and long working hours to health risks. According to the result, men who have less physical activities and have more than 40 hours of working time have twice-higher risk to death due to cardiovascular problems than those who work in fewer hours.
However, those men who work for more than 40 hours but have regular physical exercises do not have such health risk.
Finally, researchers encourage the people to have at least 30 minutes of physical activities such brisk walking and running daily or at least 5 times a week. Such exercises prove to be effective in reducing the risk of cardiovascular problems, an expert says.
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