A new study conducted by researchers reveals that work-related stress can cause cancer in men.
According to the study published in journal of Preventive Medicine, prolonged exposure of men to work-related stress has been linked to an increased likelihood of lung, colon, rectal and stomach cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Researchers at INRS and Universite de Montreal in Canada conducted the study to assess the link between cancer and work-related stress perceived by men throughout their working life.
On average, the study participants had held four jobs, with some holding up to a dozen or more during their working lifetime. A link between work-related stress and cancer was not found in participants who had held stressful jobs for less than 15 years.
Significant links to five of the eleven cancers considered in the study were revealed.
The most stressful jobs included firefighter, industrial engineer, aerospace engineer, mechanic foreman and vehicle and railway-equipment repair worker and for the same individual, stress varied depending on the job held.
The study also shows that perceived stress is not limited to high work load and time constraints.
Physiological or biological stress is an organism’s response to a stressor such as an environmental condition. Stress is a body’s method of reacting to a challenge. According to the stressful event, the body’s way to respond to stress is by sympathetic nervous system activation which results in the fight-or-flight
response.