Why You Should Leave by 5 P.M.

Using the researchers’ definition of long work hours, long work hours increased the overall risk of stroke by 29%, even after adjusting for risk factors such as age, gender, blood pressure, family history and smoking habits.

Here’s how working long hours for at least 10 years affected the risk of stroke for some other groups of workers:

• All workers with long hours: 45%
• Workers with low-skilled white-collar jobs: 70%
• Workers with high-skilled, white-collar jobs: 77%
• All workers under 50: 128%

George writes that this kind of data might be relevant to the level of health risk facing his own insurance professional readers, not just the general insured population.

“It is increasingly common for many highly skilled professionals, including underwriters, to be asked to work additional hours, often routinely and on an extended basis,” George writes. “Therefore, we are concerned whether this impacts morbidity and mortality. If it does, to what extent?”

George says long work hours could lead to increased risk of heart attacks and other ominous consequences, not just increased stroke risk.

Fadel and his colleagues “observed that clinical medicine should strive to find prevention strategies,” George writes. “One strategy should be rather obvious here!”

— Read 10 States Where Stroke May Hurt Your Sales, on ThinkAdvisor.

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