A new study shares that women’s likelihood of developing coronary heart disease (CHD) increases by a whopping 21% due to the combined effect of paid work and the added stress from social interactions.
Another surprising discovery in the study showed that life events that are also considered high stress were actually linked to a an increase in the risk of getting CHD by 12%. Meanwhile, social strain increased the risk by 9%.
If what the study found is really true, by focusing on more ways to lessen or counter the effects of work, social strain and stress, they can help find ways to lessen the risk of females developing CHD.
Apparently, the relationship that women have with psychosocial stress and CHD is stronger for women than it is in men. Notably, this can also change depending on the kind of stress or stressor they are dealing with.
But, it is still not exactly clear how these varying types of psychosocial stress truly affect the risk of developing CHD in women.
Because of this, a research team from Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health in Philadelphia, PA chose to examine the connection between psychological stressors such as job strain, social strain and stressful life events with women suffering or experiencing CHD.
The research group chose to go through data that was collected for the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study(WHIOS) in order to look at both independent and combined consequences of social relationships, paid work and stressful life events.
The study findings, which are published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, show that both social strain and work are a huge joint factor when it comes to women and CHD. In fact, they increase the risk of developing CHD by a whopping 21%.
The negative aspects of social strain alongside stressful life events, negative social interactions or relationships also heighten female risk of increasing CHD by 12% and 9%.
The study’s lead author, Dr. Conglong Wang explains, “Our findings are a critical reminder to women, and those who care about them, that the threat of stress to human health should not go ignored. This is particularly pertinent during the stressors caused by a pandemic.”
If their findings are true, researchers believe that by shifting the focus of handling or managing current stress to administering ways to stop the stress at the actual source, then it could work towards preventing CHD in the first place.
The study is also a strong reminder that stress is truly a huge threat when it comes to people’s health, particularly women. This is also why the need to address the issue appropriately, correctly, and sooner rather than later, is incredibly important.
The Relationship Between Stress and CHD
In the past few years, there have been a number of large studies that have shown just how horrible the impact of psychosocial stress from a number of different aspects in life could seriously increase the risk of getting CHD.
A huge reason the risk of CHD is higher is also due to psychosocial stress, because it causes a disruption of homeostasis – the optimal functioning of organs within their systems – which is what leads to illness in the first place.
Because of this, the stress ends up heightening any cardiovascular reactivity and inflammation. This can end in metabolic changes that also enhance the risk of developing CHD. Psychological stress is yet another type of stress that’s linked with negative behaviors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, or being physically inactive.
In addition, particular medical conditions such as hypertension and diabetes also raise the risk of CHD too.
The study also shows that men and women react and are impacted by stress very differently. However, the findings of some studies show that the link of psychosocial stress and CHD could be worse for women than men.
In fact, one study showed that women were documented to have an average of higher stress levels, as well as actual physical symptoms like depression and exhaustion. In another study, the findings showed that women are faced with more psychological stressors than men too.
But, scientists are still unsure of how these different stressors truly affect women’s risk of developing CHD. Therefore, it’s also not clear which stressors are the exact one that actually increase their risk of CHD more than others.
In this manner, it makes it harder for healthcare professional to give advice to women on the way they should best deal with their stress to lessen their chances of having CHD. This also means that women are also unsure of which exact stressors are more important to worry about with CHD than others.
The Relationship Between Work and Social Strains
For the new study, the research group chose to analyze the data they got from the WHIOS study, which worked towards looking for better ways to prevent cancer, heart disease, and osteoporosis in women.
The research group analyzed data from 80,825 women living all across the United States that were already in a menopause. The participants were between the ages of 50-79 when the WHIOS study began tracking them with an average time of 14 and 7 months, while they addressed their stressors in the WHIOS study using a self-reporting questionnaires.
The research also found that, after changing the variables of the questionnaires to things about age, job tenure, socioeconomic factors, and other additional stressors, they found that the high stressful life events score actually increased the risk of CHD by 12%, while the high social strain increased to 9%.
The research group also shared that the impact of social strain and work also ‘seem to work synergistically,’ causing an increase of the risk of developing CHD in women by 21%. Yet job strain alone wasn’t linked to a raise in CHD risk.
Through these findings, the hope is that they can help the way healthcare professionals and even females choose to best deal with their stress in order to lessen their risk of CHD.
Study Limitations
It’s important to note that the study shares how an extremely large number of the study participants were white and had more than a high school diploma too. The findings could have also been impacted by the “healthy worker bias,” which translates to there being people that are less healthy probably don’t have jobs either.
Also, the team didn’t take into consideration other important yet aggravating factors like social support systems, working hours, and other such issues that have been correlated to CHD. Scientists also focused more on the impact of stress related to the participants’ current or most recent job, rather than the possible job changes they have had.
The study group also explains that more studies are needed in order to determine whether job demands have an impact when aligned with their gender. An individual’s gender and socioeconomic status may also affect the way they handle stress and stressors. Because of this, they believe that future studies should identify subgroups of people who are more equipped to ‘benefit from preventive stress interventions than others.’
Yet, all these new findings also aid in figuring out better, diverse and more advanced research that can delve into the link between heart disease, stress, gender and or sex.
Their new studies could help both healthcare professionals and women to reassess their options when it comes to lessening the risk for CHD and bettering their overall health.
Senior author and associate professor in the Domsife School of Public Health, Dr. Yvonne Michael, explains, “The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted ongoing stresses for women in balancing paid work and social stressors. We know from other studies that work strain may play a role in developing CHD, but now, we can better pinpoint the combined impact of stress at work and at home on these poor health outcomes.”
She adds, “My hope is that these findings are a call for better methods of monitoring stress in the workplace and remind us of the dual burden working women face as a result of their unpaid work as caregivers at home.”
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