Job stress doubles diabetes risk

Work stress twice the risk of developing diabetes for women who have slight or no control over what they perform on the job, according to a latest Canadian study.

The similar is not true for men.

“Men and women respond differently to workplace stress,” Peter Smith, lead writer of the nine-year study via researchers at the Institute for Work and Health as well as the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto, said.

Smith suggested that women under stress possibly “more likely to turn to foods with higher fat as well as sugar content than men,” as one probable explanation for the results.

The primary causes outlined in the study for the enlarged risk for women are the disruptions of neuroendocrine and immune system functioning and amplified or prolonged cortisol and sympathetic hormone discharge in reaction to stress; and changes in diet and energy expenditure, probably as coping mechanisms.

The researchers followed 7,443 women working in Canada’s Ontario region with no previous diagnoses for diabetes.

Their results, published this week in the journal of Occupational Medicine, proved that 19 percent of cases of diabetes in women are caused by “low job control,” which is senior than that for smoking, drinking or low physical action, but lower than for fatness.

Job stress doubles diabetes risk