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Indulging in manual labour can get you type two diabetes

Further research is needed to identify the underlying mechanisms

New Delhi: People working for more than 55 hours per week doing manual work or other low socio-economic status jobs have a 30 per cent greater risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, according to the largest study in this field so far, published in Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.

Analysis of data involving 2,22,120 men and women from the US, Europe, Japan and Australia, who were followed for an average of 7.6 years, found a similar risk of developing Type 2 diabetes in people working more than 55 hours a week compared to those putting in a normal 35 to 40-hour week.

Further analyses revealed that individuals doing low socio-economic status jobs who worked 55 hours or more per week had a roughly 30 per cent increased risk of developing diabetes compared to their counterparts who worked between 35 and 40 hours a week, even after taking into account health behaviours such as smoking and physical activity, and other risk factors, including age, sex, and obesity.

“This association remained strong even after excluding shift work, which has been shown to increase the risk of obesity and developing Type 2 diabetes,” Lancet said.
Researchers, however, say that further research is needed to identify the underlying mechanisms for the association between long working hours and diabetes in people doing low socio-economic status jobs, but suggest a number of possible explanations, including working disruptive schedules that leave little time to take part in health restoring behaviours, such as sleeping, unwinding, and exercise.

According to Mika Kivimäki, professor of epidemiology at University College London, “The pooling of all available studies on this topic allowed us to investigate the association between working hours and diabetes risk with greater precision than has been previously possible. Although working long hours is unlikely to increase diabetes risk in everyone, health professionals should be aware that it is associated with a significantly increased risk in people doing low socio-economic status jobs.”

( Source : dc )
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