Working women under stress more likely to have heart problems

Working women are equal to men in a way they'll wish they weren't. Female workers with stressful jobs were more likely than women with less job strain to suffer a heart attack or a stroke or to have clogged arteries, a study found.

Worrying about losing a job can raise heart risks, too, researchers found. The results seem sure to resonate in a weak economy with plenty of stress about jobs. It was the longest major study to look at stress in women, who make up nearly half the workforce.

"The reality is these women don't have the same kind of jobs as men" and often lack authority or control over their work, said Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum of Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. "It's not just going to work, it's what happens when you get there."

She had no role in the study, led by Dr. Michelle Albert of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Results were reported yesterday at an American Heart Association meeting in Chicago.

The research involved 17,415 participants in the Women's Health Study. The women were healthy, 57 on average, and worked full or part time when the federally funded study began in 1999. Most were health professionals, "anything from being a nurse's aide all the way to a PhD," Albert said. They filled out surveys about their jobs, rating statements such as "My job requires working very fast," and "I am free from competing demands that others make."

A decade later, women with demanding jobs and little control over how to do them were nearly twice as likely to have suffered a heart attack as women with less demanding jobs and more control. The high-stress group had a 40 percent greater overall risk of heart problems including heart attacks, strokes or clogged arteries. - AP