rss
Occup Environ Med 2001;58:569-574 doi:10.1136/oem.58.9.569
  • Review

Hours of work and the risk of developing impaired fasting glucose or type 2 diabetes mellitus in Japanese male office workers

Abstract

OBJECTIVE To investigate the association between duration of overtime and the development of impaired fasting glucose (IFG) or type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM).

METHODS A cohort of 1266 Japanese male office workers aged 35–59 years and free of IFG (fasting plasma glucose concentration 6.1–6.9 mmol/l), type 2 DM (fasting plasma glucose concentration of 7.0 mmol/l or more or taking hypoglycaemic medication), history of diabetes, or medication for hypertension were re-examined over 5 successive years after their initial examinations in 1994.

RESULTS 138 men developed IFG or type 2 DM during the 5736 person-years of follow up. After controlling for potential predictors of diabetes, the relative risks of IFG or type 2 DM, compared with those who worked <8.0 hours a day, were 0.82 (95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.54 to 1.26), 0.69 (95% CI 0.38 to 1.26), 0.63 (95% CI: 0.37 to 1.09), and 0.50 (95% CI: 0.25 to 0.98) for those who worked 8.0–8.9, 9.0–9.9, 10.0–10.9, and of 11.0 hours or more a day, respectively (p for trend=0.020). 87 and 54 men developed IFG and type 2 DM during the 5817 and 5937 person-years of follow up, respectively. The multivariate adjusted relative risks of IFG tended to decrease with an increase in hours of overtime work a day, but did not reach significance (p for trend=0.202). On the other hand, the multivariate adjusted relative risks of type 2 DM significantly decreased with an increase in hours of overtime work a day (p for trend=0.014).

CONCLUSION Longer overtime is a negative risk factor for the development of IFG or type 2 DM in Japanese male office workers.

Footnotes

    This Article

    Services

    1. Request permissions

    Responses

    1. Submit a response
    2. No responses published

    Social bookmarking

    Register for free content


    Free sample
    This recent issue is free to all users to allow everyone the opportunity to see the full scope and typical content of OEM.
    View free sample issue >>

    Free archive
    The full back archive is now available for OEM. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006, back to volume 1 issue 1.
    Register to access the free archive >>

    Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.