Stroke risk 35 per cent higher for women in stressful jobs

Researchers have found that women in highly stressful jobs are a third more likely to have stroke than those in ordinary work and that employees of both sexes who have to deal with high stress levels are at least 20 per cent more at risk.

The results emerged after analysis of earlier studies and researchers point out that those in stressful jobs tend to eat and drink less healthily and smoke more.

Stress itself has also been linked to heart problems, high blood pressure and other physical conditions, which can raise the risk of stroke.

The analysis, published online by the journal Neurology, looked at all of the available research on job strain and stroke risk – six studies involving more than 138,000 participants who were followed for between three and 17 years.
They are known for causing excruciating pain that some argue is worse than childbirth.

Also, Turkish doctors claim men who had intercourse three to four times a week or more are more likely to spontaneously ‘pass’ a kidney stone than those who did not.

Millions of people at any one time will have a kidney stone, though many are small and will pass out of the body naturally, unnoticed.

These stones can form when minerals, including calcium, oxalate and uric acid, clump together to form hard stones, which can be up to four to five centimnetres across or even bigger.

The study, published in the leading journal Urology, was conducted at the Ankara Training and Research Hospital, in the country’s capital.
It is often said men think about sex every six seconds, and now research has shown some males really do have sex on the brain.

Researchers have also found why men prioritise sex and relationships over everything, even food.
A study of tiny, transparent worms found the males boast two extra brain cells that drive them to seek out sex.
The study was published yesterday in Nature.

In fact, these cells have such a powerful pull, they can cause them to prioritise sex above food.
Although the study was on worms, because their biology is similar to ours the researchers said the findings provide insight into the behaviour of the sexes of other animals, including humans.

The University College London scientists studied C elegans, a soil-dwelling worm that grows to just one millimetre long.
Despite its small size, its biology has much in common with ours and it is the most studied animal in the world. It comes in two sexes – male and hermaphrodite, a modified female that does not need to have sex to reproduce.

Experiments have previously shown the males to have a pair of brain cells that aren’t found in the hermaphrodites. Further experiments have now revealed just what these ‘mystery cells of the male’, or MCMs, do.
First, the worms were trained to associate saltiness with starvation.As a result, if they were placed on a plate with different concentrations of salt, they moved away from the mineral.
Both sexes learnt to do this, the journal Nature reports.

Meanwhile, lead researcher of the stroke study, Dr. Dingli Xu, of Southern Medical University in China, said: “Having a lot of job stress has been linked to heart disease, but studies on job stress and stroke have shown inconsistent results.
“It is possible that high-stress jobs lead to more unhealthy behaviours, such as poor eating habits, smoking and a lack of exercise.”

In the study jobs were classified into groups based on how much control workers had over their jobs and how hard they worked, or the psychological demands. The job demands included time pressure, mental load and co-ordination burdens. Physical labour and total number of hours worked were not taken into account.

Passive jobs were classified as those with low demand and low control. Examples include janitors, miners and other manual workers. Low-stress jobs are those with low demand and high control. Examples are natural scientists and architects.

High-stress jobs, which are high demand and low control, are found in the service industry and include waitresses and nursing aides. Active jobs with high demand and high control include doctors, teachers and engineers.

In the six studies, the proportion of those with high-stress jobs ranged from 11 per cent to 27 per cent of the participants.
The analysis found that those with high-stress jobs had a 22 per cent higher risk of stroke than those with low-stress jobs. Women with high-stress jobs had a 33 per cent higher risk of stroke than women with low-stress jobs. It was not clear why women had a higher risk.

People with high-stress jobs were 58 per cent more likely to suffer an ischemic stroke than those with low stress jobs. Ischemic stroke, which is the most common type, is caused by blockage in blood flow to the brain, often because a clot has moved from another area of the body.

People in jobs classed as passive and active did not have any increased risk of stroke.
Xu said limitations of the research were that job stress was measured at only one point in time and that other factors – such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol – were not adequately adjusted for in the original studies.

Experts said the review suggested that trials on different ways of managing employees and their work could improve their health.
Dr. Jennifer Majersik, a neurologist of Utah University in the United States (US), said of the findings: “Based on this study, it is reasonable to consider testing interventions aimed at increasing job control, such as decentralisation of decision-making and flexibility in job structure, such as tele-commuting (working from home). If effective, such workplace changes could have a major public health impact.”

Co-author of the Nature study, Prof. Scott Emmons, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, said: “Though the work is carried out in a small worm, it nevertheless gives us a perspective that helps us appreciate and possibly understand the variety of human sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender identification.”
The US study found that men do think about sex rather a lot. But it is more in the region of once every 50 minutes – or around 19 times a day.

Women daydream more about food and so only manage ten racy thoughts a day.
In June last year, researchers discovered the worm can put itself into ‘famine mode’ – a state where it does not age.
The experts found that taking food away from C. elegans triggered a state of arrested development: while the organism continued to wriggle about, foraging for food, its cells and organs were suspended in an ageless, quiescent state.

When food became plentiful again, the worm developed as planned, but could live twice as long as normal. This is interesting because it could have implications for helping humans live longer.

Meanwhile, the researchers of the kidney stones study concluded: “Our results have indicated that patients who have distal ureteral stones smaller than 6mm – and a sexual partner – may be advised to have sexual intercourse three to four times a week to increase the probability of spontaneous passage of the stones.”
Another study, published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, compared the effects of tamsulosin with a placebo treatment for different sized kidney stones.

Generally speaking, kidney stones can be excruciatingly painful as the body tries to pass them out in urine.They can also get stuck in the ureter (the tube carrying urine from the kidneys to the bladder) or lodge in the kidneys, causing infection.They are more common in men, perhaps because physical work makes them prone to dehydration, which reduces the water content of urine, so the mineral concentration is higher.

Eating lots of meat and high-protein diets also put people at greater risk as animal protein raises levels of uric acid.
Treatment options include muscle relaxants to make it easier for small stones to pass. Doctors also try to break up smaller, 1-2cm stones with shockwaves administered through the skin.

Alternatively, they can use a tiny telescope, which allows the surgeon to see inside the kidney and also provides a channel to insert a laser to destroy stones.