People who complain that "this job is killing me" now have real scientific evidence to back up the claim. People with demanding jobs that allow them little latitude for making decisions have higher blood pressure and are at greater risk of heart disease than workers who do not experience decreases in blood pressure. The findings provide new evidence that job strain is a risk factor in the development of hypertension, explained Dr. Peter L. Schnall and his colleagues in an article that was published in the November-December issue of Psychosomatic Medicine. This research is being conducted at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and SUNY, Stony Brook, under the leadership of Dr. Thomas Pickering and Dr. Joseph Schwartz.

The research team recruited 285 New York City men who worked in a variety of skilled and unskilled jobs. The men completed a questionnaire assessing their freedom to make decisions on the job and the extent of time-pressure demands the job put on them. They also wore a device that recorded their blood pressure at 15-minute intervals over a 24-hour period. The measurements were repeated in 195 of the men three years later.

At the initial evaluation and three years later, men who said they had high-strain jobs had significantly higher blood pressure readings both at work and at home than their low-strain counterparts. Men who remained in high-strain jobs over the three years had much higher blood pressures than those who remained in low-strain jobs.

Interestingly, men who were initially on high-strain jobs, but moved to low-strain positions saw their blood pressure readings fall over time, according to the report. In fact, their follow-up blood pressure is larger than the observed treatment effect on blood pressures of weight-reduction interventions reported in four major clinical trials. This finding suggests that the removal of job strain could result in a significant reduction in blood pressure.

"The role of stress in causing high blood pressure has long been suspected, but convincing evidence has been lacking," Pickering and his colleagues say. Although the Cornell Work Site Blood Pressure Study is, to date, the largest longitudinal study of job strain and ambulatory blood pressure, the researchers reported that given that this is the first study of its kind to be conducted in the U.S., further follow-up and replication are necessary.