Association not seen in men who worked 45+ hours in a week Women who work long hours may be at a heightened risk for diabetes, a new study found. Specifically, those who worked ≥45 hours in 1 week reported a significantly higher risk for developing incident diabetes compared with women who worked 35-40 hours each week (HR 1.63, 95% CI 1.04-2.57), according to Mahée Gilbert-Ouimet, PhD candidate, of Centre de recherche FRQS in Quebec, and colleagues. However, this link was not seen in men who worked long hours (HR 0.81, 95% CI 0.59-1.11), they wrote in BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care. Instead, men who worked more hours tended to have a slightly lower risk of incident diabetes, although this wasn't statistically significant. "The deleterious effect of long work hours observed among women of this study was robust to adjustment for sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics, other work-related exposures, and health conditions including hypertension, arthritis, and anxiety symptoms," the authors explained. However, they added that these risk estimates were "slightly attenuated" after additional adjustments for smoking, leisure time physical activity, alcohol consumption (HR 1.58, 95% CI 1.00-2.49) and BMI (HR 1.51, 95% CI 0.93-2.45). The study included data on 7,065 Canadian workers followed over the course of 12 years. The researchers defined incident diabetes as a hospital admission where a diagnosis of diabetes was given, or two physician service claims with a diabetes diagnosis occurring within 2 years of each other. Hours worked per week were stratified across four categories -- 15-34 hours, 25-40 hours, 41-44 hours, and ≥45 hours worked each week. No other categories of average weekly work hours showed any significant associated with incident diabetes. During follow-up, 12.2% of men in the study developed diabetes, while 7.5% of women were diagnosed with diabetes. Not surprisingly, individuals who were of older age with obesity tended to have a higher incidence of diabetes. These findings are generally consistent with previous literature in this area, the authors noted. But a limitation to the current analysis included the fact that work hours were only measured at one point during the 12-year follow-up; any possible employment changes during this time were left unaccounted for. Additionally, there was no distinction between type 1 and type 2 diabetes during the assessment of health records. Gilbert-Ouimet's group suggested future studies should aim to look more closing at the specific pathways that intertwine work hours, health behaviors, lifestyle including familial responsibilities with the subsequent risk for diabetes, and specifically in respect to gender differences. Source
