This systematic review & meta-analysis evaluated the evidence between occupational physical activity and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality.
31 articles met the criteria from 3345 articles.
This topic is said to be important because evidence is conflicting about beneficial effects of physical activity, since it has mostly been derived from leisure-time research and not in occupational settings. E.g. a previous meta-analysis found a 27% reduction of CVD mortality risk for people with high intensity leisure-time physical activity compared to low intensity.
In contrast, a recent systematic review found that males with high occupational physical activity had an 18% increase in mortality risk compared to those with low occupational physical activity. It’s hypothesised that a reason why domain-specific health effects exist is because of acute & chronic physiological and cardiorespiratory responses in physical activity which differ between domains.
For instance, occupational physical activity tends to be more low intensity and long duration – e.g. cleaners (which falls short of the necessary threshold for cardiovascular health). For moderate intensity occupations, “physical activity intensity was maintained over a long duration, and probably with insufficient time to recover, which can lead to chronic fatigue and prolonged elevated resting blood pressure (11) and heart rate” (p2); all known hemodynamic risk factors for CVD.
Results
No statistically significant association with overall CVD mortality was found with occupational physical activity for both males and females.
However, a 15% increase was found in males for ischemic heart disease mortality although this wasn’t statistically significant. The 15% increase was relatively consistent with another recent review which found a weak, positive and statistically significant 25% ischemic heart disease mortality risk increase.
The authors note that the current findings and lack of associations compared to some other research may be driven, in part, that negative health effects of occupational physical activity may not be mostly about CVD risk factors but also include other risk factors that co-exist in workplaces, like carcinogens, radiation and other hygiene factors.
In conclusion, these findings didn’t support an association between occupational physical activity and CVD mortality, and the link with ischemic mortality was elevated but not statistically significant, it’s noted that when considered with other recent meta-analytic data that “high levels of occupational physical activity do not confer cardiovascular health benefits, in contrast to beneficial leisure-time physical activity effects often reported in the literature” (p9).
That is, while there is some *weak* but statistically significant association with impaired CVD risk with occupational physical activity, it also seems reasonable that occupational physical activity is unlikely to confer any *positive* benefits.
Authors: Cillekens B, Huysmans MA, Holtermann A, van Mechelen W, Straker L, Krause N, van der Beek AJ, Coenen P, 2021, Scand J Work Environ Health
Study link: https://doi.org/10.5271/sjweh.3993
Link to the LinkedIn article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/physical-activity-work-may-health-enhancing-review-ben-hutchinson
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