Jun. 10--Retirement-age people who had higher status jobs tend to have less hypertension than those who worked in lower status occupations, according to a UC Davis researcher.
"For a long time, the conventional wisdom was that the people at the top would be more likely to have hypertension, but just the opposite is true," said Paul Leigh, UC Davis professor with the Department of Public Sciences.
What researchers found in a study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine is that retirement-aged Americans who held jobs such as chief executives, architects and engineers tend to have the lowest rates of hypertension.
Workers in jobs such as sales, administrative support, construction and food preparation have little control over decision-making and are under pressure to get work done in a specific amount of time. Those workers, according to the study, tend to have higher stress levels, which can lead to high blood pressure and hypertension.
Researchers used data from 7,289 men and women over the age of 65. Occupations included managers and white-collar professionals, clerical and blue-collar workers.
A small percentage were still working when the data were collected, according to a UC Davis Health System press release.
Hypertension is abnormally high pressure on artery walls, a condition that can lead to heart attack, stroke, aneurysm and kidney failure.
------
Call The Bee's Bill Lindelof, (916) 321-1079.
-----
To see more of The Sacramento Bee, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sacbee.com/.
Copyright (c) 2009, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.