Aerobic activity off the job boosts overall good health
| • | A few tests can keep tabs on your cardiac health |
| • | Strenuous jobs linked to burning off weight |
By Linda Stahl
Gannett News Service
Some people's workday involves hauling heavy loads with a wheelbarrow, using a shovel and hoe, or climbing up and down ladders.
Other folks spend their eight hours attending meetings, working at a computer and talking on the phone.
So who is more fit? A no-brainer, you say — the manual laborer is better off.
Actually, your answer is both right and dead wrong.
First, consider a study done by two epidemiologists and two cardiologists in Germany who studied 800 people ages 40 to 68.
They found that if a physical laborer does no fitness exercise during his leisure time, he is more likely to have coronary heart disease than an office worker who incorporates some leisure-time exercise into his life.
Job-related physical activity is usually anaerobic, requiring short bursts of effort.
The investigators suspect that most physical activity away from work was aerobic. Only aerobic exercise, such as cycling, walking, rowing or swimming, raises the heart rate and sustains it long enough to strengthen the heart muscle.
The study found that those who did labor involving physical strain had almost five times the odds of getting coronary disease as workers with sedentary jobs.
But the study also found that among all workers, a walk or other aerobic exercise lasting for as little as two hours a week lowered the odds of having coronary heart disease, and exercising more than two hours reduced the odds of heart disease even more.
Those who exercised off the clock also had lower levels of blood chemicals that can indicate heart disease or a precursor, according to the study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Mike Bracko, a Canadian occupational physiologist, says the nature of the work-related physical activity is critical.
"People who walk as part of their job are better off," he says. He cited a study done by the Wakayama Medical College in Japan of 730 middle-age men who worked in a manufacturing plant, and were given pedometers.
The researchers concluded that walking 10,000 steps a day, regardless of the intensity or duration of exercise, lowered high blood pressure and increased exercise capacity.
Wayne Westcott, a fitness research director at the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Mass., and author of several fitness books, sees desk workers as potentially under a great deal of stress.
"Jobs demanding much mental effort may be more stressful in many ways than jobs requiring lots of muscular exertion," Westcott wrote. "In fact, office employees typically have more difficulty sleeping than those who do manual labor." He says such workers need a plan for regular physical activity to curb sleeping difficulties. Otherwise "your mind never rests, and your body never works like it should."
Dr. Osric S. King, a sports medicine physician in New York City, believes that those with physically demanding jobs should look at themselves as professional athletes: They should maintain a level of physical fitness for their jobs as a preventive against injury. He also advocates teaching manual laborers how to lift heavy objects properly.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health notes that shift work, which disrupts the circadian rhythms of the body, has been linked to heart disease in heavy-equipment factories. The institute also reports "heavy lifting has been associated with increased risk of heart attack."
It says more studies are needed in these areas.
All workers, manual laborers and desk jockeys alike, have to consider the stresses and strains of their jobs and try to take appropriate steps to avoid injuries, sleep problems and other obstacles, experts said.
People who work as physical laborers face possible injuries from lifting and other movements, but people who are sedentary face possible injuries, too.
"Extended periods of sitting can put you at risk for a herniated disk," Bracko says. That has led a University of Waterloo, Ontario, professor to advocate that office workers in North America be required to stand up and do something else every 50 minutes.
"The disks don't have a natural blood supply. They require movement to get a blood supply," Bracko said.
It often boils down to taking personal responsibility for your health, Bracko says. No matter what your occupation, you should get plenty of rest, eat nutritious meals and keep your level of emotional stress low by having healthy relationships, he says.
Assess the kind of physical activity you have in your work life and nonwork life. Everyone needs some aerobic exercise, and some need exercise that prevents on-the-job injuries as well, Bracko says.
