Mentally tiring jobs could increase diabetes risk in women: European Journal of Endocrinology

France: Mentally tiring jobs can lead to type 2 diabetes in women, a recent study in the European Journal of Endocrinology has found.

The results suggest the importance of considering the potential long-term metabolic impact of work-related stress among women who work in a demanding environment.

Previous work suggested inconsistent or no associations between work-related stress and risk of type 2 diabetes but suggested the need to further explore sex-specific differences as women had potentially higher risks.

Guy Fagherazzi, Paris-South Paris Saclay University, Villejuif, France, and colleagues analyzed data from 73 517 women, mostly teachers, from the E3N cohort study followed for 22 years (1992–2014), to study the association between mentally tiring work, used as a proxy of job demands, and type 2 diabetes risk. A total of 4187 incident cases of type 2 diabetes case.

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Key findings include:

• There was a higher type 2 diabetes risk for women with a ‘Very mentally tiring work’ when compared to women with ‘Little or not mentally tiring work,' HR = 1.21.


• This association was independent of an unhealthy lifestyle and traditional metabolic factors.


• An interaction between mentally tiring work and BMI was detected, with a stronger association being observed in non-overweight women, HR = 1.26 vs HR = 1.14, in overweight women.

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"The results showed there was a 21% increase in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes across the workers. Interestingly, a stronger association was found between increased type 2 diabetes risk and mentally tiring work for non-overweight women (BMI of less than 25kg/m²) than for overweight women (BMI of 25kg/m² or more)," wrote the authors.

"These observational results suggest the importance of taking into consideration the potential long-term metabolic impact of work-related stress for women working in a demanding environment. Increased support for such women should be investigated in intervention studies," they concluded.

To read the complete study log on to https://doi.org/10.1530/EJE-18-0804