Low-paid employees under crushing work stress have a nearly doubled risk of developing a dangerous heart rhythm disorder, a new study finds. White-collar workers with high-stress, low-reward jobs have a 97% increased risk of developing atrial fibrillation, which increases a person’s risk of stroke and heart failure, researchers report. “Our study suggests that work-related stressors may be relevant factors to include in preventive strategies” targeting heart disease, said senior study author Xavier Trudel, an occupational and cardiovascular epidemiologist at Laval University in Quebec, Canada. For the study, Trudel and his colleagues analyzed data on more than 5,900 Canadian workers gathered during a research project from 1991 to 2018. The employees were asked about their work stress, and medical records revealed that 186 of the workers had developed atrial fibrillation, or A-Fib. About 19% of those with A-Fib said they had high job stress, while another 25% said their work wasn’t being adequately rewarded with recognition or better pay. About 10% said they had stress and also felt poorly rewarded for their work. Those with high job stress had an 83% increased risk of A-Fib compared those not stressed by work, results show. Likewise, those who felt poorly rewarded had a 44% increased risk of A-Fib, compared to those who felt work was treating them fairly. And those with both stressors had a 97% increased risk…  read on >  read on >

Black employees in a toxic workplace are more susceptible to depression and sleep loss than whites are, according to new research. Black workers being mistreated by employers got an estimated 100 fewer minutes of sleep per night than white workers or Black people not enduring mistreatment did, results showed. They also were more likely to develop symptoms of depression, researchers found. Follow-up research revealed this response could be due to America’s history of racial prejudice, the researchers said. Mistreated black employees were nearly eight times more likely to perceive prejudice attributed to their race than mistreated white employees were, researchers found. White employees were less likely to attribute mistreatment to race and were able to more easily shake it off, results showed. “Our findings are not intended to put the onus on Black employees for being too sensitive, but to inform organizations that mistreatment is experienced within the context of one’s identity,” said researcher Erik Gonzalez-Mule, chair of management and entrepreneurship with the Indiana University School of Business. “Organizations must strive to create an inclusive workplace for their Black employees and should find ways to reduce workplace mistreatment, for example, by implementing accountability measures or encouraging bystander intervention,” Gonzalez-Mule added in a university news release. For this study, the team first analyzed data gathered from more than 3, 500 people as part of a study…  read on >  read on >

Americans continue to rank dead last in life expectancy among English-speaking countries, a new study finds. People in the United States more often fall prey at younger ages to accidental deaths, homicides and chronic diseases, researchers reported Aug. 13 in the BMJ Open journal. On the other hand, Australians had the longest life expectancy of any English speakers, despite their country teeming with deadly sharks, spiders and snakes. Australian life expectancy is nearly four more years longer than the United States for women and five more years longer for men. The United States also trails Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and New Zealand in life expectancy, researchers found. However, they said the findings should be seen as an incentive for goal-setting for Americans. “Yes, we’re doing badly, but this study shows what can we aim for,” said senior researcher Jessica Ho, an associate professor of sociology and demography at Penn State. “We know these gains in life expectancy are actually achievable because other large countries have already done it.” For the study, researchers compared life expectancy between English-speaking nations using data from the World Health Organization and the international Human Mortality Database. The data showed that the United States has had the worst life expectancy among these countries since the early 1990s. U.S. women live an average of 81.5 years, and men 76.5 years, researchers…  read on >  read on >

Many nonsmokers have lung nodules that have been linked to lung cancer, a new study warns. About 42% of nonsmokers or former smokers have at least one lung nodule, which is a small mass of dense tissue that may be cancerous, according to chest CT scans performed on more than 10,400 people aged 45 and older. Further, about 11% of participants had larger lung nodules measuring 6 to 8 millimeters that will require close medical scrutiny, researchers said. “This was higher than we expected and even similar to the prevalence reported in high-risk populations of smokers,” said senior researcher Dr. Rozemarijn Vliegenthart, a professor of cardiothoracic imaging at the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands. The older people are, the greater their odds of having both more lung nodules and larger nodules, results showed. Men were more likely than women to both have lung nodules and have multiple nodules, researchers noted. Most of the lung nodules weren’t cancerous, Vliegenthart stressed. “The incidence of lung cancer in this population is very low, 0.3%, suggesting that most of the clinically relevant and even actionable nodules in a nonsmoking cohort are benign,” Vliegenthart said in a university news release. However, their presence will require follow-up scans and examination under current cancer screening guidelines, the researchers said. The new study was published Aug. 13 in the journal Radiology.…  read on >  read on >

Red meat contains a type of iron that could increase a person’s risk of type 2 diabetes, a new study warns. People who ate the most foods high in heme iron — red meat and other animal products, mainly — had a 26% higher risk of type 2 diabetes than those who ate the least, researchers reported Aug. 13 in the journal Nature Metabolism. In fact, heme iron accounted for more than half of the type 2 diabetes risk associated with unprocessed red meat, researchers found. But non-heme iron, which is found in plant-based foods, had no link at all with type 2 diabetes, results show. “This study underscores the importance of healthy dietary choices in diabetes prevention,” said researcher Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. “Reducing heme iron intake, particularly from red meat, and adopting a more plant-based diet can be effective strategies in lowering diabetes risk,” Hu added in a Harvard news release. Heme iron comes from hemoglobin, a blood protein that facilitates the transport of oxygen in red blood cells. It’s commonly found in meat, poultry and seafood, and is more easily absorbed by the body than non-heme iron. For the study, researchers assessed the link between iron intake and type 2 diabetes using 36 years of dietary reports…  read on >  read on >

New research suggests that switching from smoking to vaping won’t prevent some dangerous changes to a person’s genome. A new study conducted in young adults shows similar cancer-linked gene changes in both vapers and smokers. “These findings have significant implications for public health and tobacco regulation that aim to keep vaping products away from young people, who are a particularly vulnerable population,” said study lead author Stella Tommasi. She’s an associate professor of research population and public health sciences at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles. At issue is a process called DNA “methylation,” essentially an on/off switch for genes that tells DNA if it should operate. The new study looked at the genetics of 30 young adults averaging 23.5 years of age. Some were exclusive e-cigarette users, vaping at least three times per week for at least six months; some were exclusive smokers, smoking at least three times per week for at least a year; and some neither vaped nor smoked. Tommasi’s group used a high-tech gene sequencing technique to look at the genomes of cells taken from each participant in cheek swabs. They found 831 “differentially methylated regions” (DMRs) in the genomes of vapers and 2,863 in smokers. DMRs are genetic areas that may be more or less methylated (switched on/off) in one person versus another. Overall, there was a 46% overlap…  read on >  read on >