Working More Than 8 Hours Could Kill You

...but so could unemployment
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 6, 2011 9:56 AM CDT
Working More Than 8 Hours Could Kill You
Don't sit at this chair for more than 11 hours.   (?Kaiban)

Should you need another reason to call it quits at 4:59pm today: A new study has found that people who clock 11 or more hours of work a day are 67% more likely to have or die from a heart attack over a 12-year period. A group of 7,000 Brits without heart disease entered the study between 1991 and 1993; they were screened for heart disease every five years until 2004. The good news is that overachievers can still overachieve a little bit: The risk didn't jump until workers passed the 11-hour mark, notes Time.

The "why" isn't totally clear, but the study's authors think chronic stress could be a factor. Time points out that sedentary office work has been shown to increase one's chance of having a large waist and upped levels of blood fats, two big heart disease indicators. But in more "can't win" news, Gawker today reports on another study that finds that being unemployed ups the risk of premature death by 63%. (More health study stories.)

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