Job Burnout May Increase Risk of Developing Diabetes

A recent Israeli study suggests that job burnout may increase your risk of developing a form of diabetes.

This study, which is the first of its kind, does not confirm that there is a link between work related stress and diabetes. However, the research suggests that job burnout could increase your risk of illness by a “magnitude similar to other risk factors, such as high body mass index, smoking, and lack of physical exercise,” according to the studies lead author Samuel Melamed, an associate professor at the Tel Aviv University in Israel.

Researchers followed 677 Israeli workers from 1998 to 2003. Close to 77 percent of the workers were men with an average age of 43 years.

Of the 677 workers, 17 of them developed type 2 diabetes during the research period. The researchers concluded that people experiencing job burnout were 1.84 times more likely to develop diabetes, even when factors such as obesity, age and sex were taken into account.

The researchers also looked at a smaller sample of 507 workers and tried to eliminate the possibility of blood pressure levels having an effect. They concluded that workers were more than 4.32 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes.

Melamed states that job burnout may only be a part of the picture. “It is possible that these people are prone to diabetes because they can’t handle stress very well,” says Melamed. “Their coping resources may have been depleted not only due to job stress but also life stresses, such as stressful life events and daily hassles.”

Stress can, indeed, disrupt the bodies ability to process glucose especially in those who are genetically prone to a diabetes vulnerability, according to Richard Surwit, chief of the Division of Medical Psychology at Duke University medical Center.

Surwit suggests that the researchers use a much larger sample to get a better result. He states that the research author “needs to look at hundreds of thousands of people to see if he gets the same thing.”