Health & Medicine
Job Stress Not Linked to Higher Cancer Risk: Study
Staff Reporter
First Posted: Feb 09, 2013 10:07 PM EST
According to new research involving more than 110,000 participants, there is no correlation between work-related stress and developing many different kinds of cancers.
However, stressed out people are more prone to smoke cigarettes and eat poorly which increases the risk of cancer.
Katriina Heikkilä, PhD, and lead researcher and her colleagues examined at 12 studies conducted between 1985 and 2008 in Finland, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. More than 116, 000 people were involved.
Over the 12-year study period, 5,765 people developed colorectal, lung, breast or prostate cancer.
According to the researchers, mental stress at work was evaluated by using a validated measure, job strain.
Job strain was categorized as below:
-into high strain job (high demands and low control),
-active job (high demands and high control),
-passive job (low demands and low control),
-low strain job (low demands and high control).
The new study did not say whether mental stress from other causes, such as stressful life happenings or job insecurity, may be linked to cancer, and whether work stress is related to the risk of types of cancers not assessed in this study, the researchers said. The study also didn't assess the period of work stress, so it is possible that long-term exposure to work stress may affect the risk of cancer. They conclude that work-related psychological factor cannot be a causal factor for cancer.
"It is also possible that stress -- at work or elsewhere -- is related to the risk of some rarer types of cancer, which we did not investigate in our study," says Heikkilä.
The research is published online in the BMJ.
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First Posted: Feb 09, 2013 10:07 PM EST
According to new research involving more than 110,000 participants, there is no correlation between work-related stress and developing many different kinds of cancers.
However, stressed out people are more prone to smoke cigarettes and eat poorly which increases the risk of cancer.
Katriina Heikkilä, PhD, and lead researcher and her colleagues examined at 12 studies conducted between 1985 and 2008 in Finland, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. More than 116, 000 people were involved.
Over the 12-year study period, 5,765 people developed colorectal, lung, breast or prostate cancer.
According to the researchers, mental stress at work was evaluated by using a validated measure, job strain.
Job strain was categorized as below:
-into high strain job (high demands and low control),
-active job (high demands and high control),
-passive job (low demands and low control),
-low strain job (low demands and high control).
The new study did not say whether mental stress from other causes, such as stressful life happenings or job insecurity, may be linked to cancer, and whether work stress is related to the risk of types of cancers not assessed in this study, the researchers said. The study also didn't assess the period of work stress, so it is possible that long-term exposure to work stress may affect the risk of cancer. They conclude that work-related psychological factor cannot be a causal factor for cancer.
"It is also possible that stress -- at work or elsewhere -- is related to the risk of some rarer types of cancer, which we did not investigate in our study," says Heikkilä.
The research is published online in the BMJ.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone