Sick leave 'link to early death'

[kendo59]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6925799.stm

Having a high-pressure job doubles the risk of depression and anxiety in young adults, warn UK researchers.

A study of 1,000 32-year-olds found 45% of new cases of depression and anxiety were attributable to stressful work.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6271429.stm

The majority of sickness absence in the UK is now due to stress-related illness.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7648460.stm

People who have long spells of sick leave for psychiatric reasons are twice as likely to die from cancer as healthier employees.

The cancer risk may be due to depressed people not seeing a doctor soon enough.
Overall 288 people died during the study.

Study leader Jenny Head said it was the first time work absence for psychiatric reasons such as depression had been linked to death from cancer.


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Well, this seems to say that a high-pressure job doubles the risk of stress/depression, but if you take time off sick, it increases the risk of it developing into cancer!!!

Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place!!!! If the stress/depression doesn't get you, the cancer will!!! Now I'm worried about being signed off work and getting cancer, wondering if it's best to find another job even if the stress will just lead to further problems.

[Jaco45er]

Don't pay any attention to polls and surveys, most are bllks.

It's a bunch of tax dodgers who run around asking people questions and then go back to the office, put 2 and 2 together and come up with 5.

Read positive stuff chap, about overcoming anxiety/depression, not " oh Jenny Head surveyed a hundred people in the south, and found out they all had inside toilets, leading her to conclude all the outside toilets must be in the north!!!"

Only ever poll I agreed with was the one about red wine, you know? about being good for you? the only bit I disagreed with was the quantity.

Surely when they said one? they mean't litre not glass?

[Dazza]

I agree with Jaco.

I do not pay attention to these kind of things. It's typical of the media to want to publish this, as they are obsessed with a constant spin of bad news, doom and anxiety provoking subtexts. It's for this reason that I hardly ever watch the news!

to stop worrying about this, watch a comedy, or as Jaco says, read the success stories on this website, and that will make you feel more perky!

[charlotte-louise]

i wish i had never read that now :doh:

[LeeBee]

Jaco and Darren are right. I've worked in and studied the media for several years and at some media organisations, the moment a nice, easy medical research press release hits the inbox, it's a big temptation for an editor with a deadline looming and space to fill to do a quick copy and paste, simplify it down so that all the grey areas and actual sciency bits are removed, and bob's your mother's brother, it's in the paper the next day. They don't all do that, and it's not malicious, but it happens more than people think. Even at the Beeb.

I get sucked into it myself all the time. I convinced myself the other day that I was going to get breast cancer because I ticked half the risk boxes that I'd seen in the media.

There's a doctor called Ben Goldacre who writes about science in the media, I've heard him say that some media organisations appear to be engaged in a project to divide all the inanimate objects in the world into those that will give you cancer, and those that will prevent it. Check him out http://www.badscience.net/

[freakedout]

Hi all.

I have often wondered what the long term effects of anxiety and panic are surely repeated palpatations and lack of oxygen to the brain from hyperventilating must have some long term effects, well perhaps not, but it does make you wonder!! Sorry about that, just one of my crazy thoughts!

Freaky