Study Explains Why Police Officers have a Higher Risk of Developing Heart Disease
In the most
recent results coming out of one of the few long-term studies being
conducted within this tightly knit society, University at Buffalo
researchers have determined that underlying the higher incidence of
subclinical atherosclerosis -- arterial thickening that precedes a
heart attack or stroke - may be the stress of police work.
In the study
from the University of Buffalo, accepted for publication in Psychiatry Research, that looked at the
male-female differences in stress and signs of heart disease,
researchers found that female police officers had higher levels of
cortisol when they awoke, and the levels remained high throughout the
day. Cortisol normally is highest in the morning and decreases to its
lowest point in the evening. The constantly high cortisol levels were
associated with less arterial elasticity, a risk factor for heart
disease.
"When
cortisol becomes dysregulated due to chronic stress, it opens a
person to disease," John Violanti,
Ph.D., UB associate professor of social and preventive medicine
said. "The body becomes
physiologically unbalanced, organs are attacked and the immune system
is compromised as well. It's unfortunate, but that's what stress does
to us."
In the current
study, the researchers used carotid artery thickness to assess heart
disease risk. Participants were 322 clinically healthy active-duty
police officers from the Buffalo Cardio-Metabolic Occupational Police
Stress study and 318 healthy persons from the ongoing UB
Western New York Health Study matched to the officers by age.
All measurements
were taken in the morning after a 12-hour fast. In addition to
testing carotid thickness via ultrasound, investigators measured
blood pressure, body size, cholesterol (both total and HDL) and
glucose. They collected information on physical activity, symptoms of
depression, alcohol consumption and smoking history. These are the
factors that typically cause heart disease.
Results showed
that police work was associated with increased subclinical
cardiovascular disease -- there was more plaque build-up in the
carotid artery -- compared to the general population that could not
be explained by those conventional heart disease risk factors.
Read more: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/10220
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