Lowly paid Civil servants at higher risk of d

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Lowly paid Civil servants at higher risk of diabetes!

ANI[ TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2004 08:33:57 PM ]

LONDON: Civil servants with a low pay scale have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes as compared to their high-paid counterparts, a study has revealed.

The study conducted by Meena Kumari of University College London, and colleagues examined the relationship between social position and incidence of type 2 diabetes, and whether psychosocial risk factors for CHD (coronary heart disease) are associated with the onset of type 2 diabetes as well.

The researchers found that there is a significant inverse relationship between impaired glucose tolerance (an indication of diabetes) and grade of employment in the civil service.

The findings published in the September 27 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine , one of the JAMA Archives journals, show that psychosocial factors like having little control at work, low social support, depression and effort-reward imbalance (when high effort at work produces little reward or benefit), are high risk factors for type 2 diabetes as well.

The researchers found that men working in lower employment grades had almost three times the risk of developing diabetes as compared to women and also the psychosocial risk factor of effort-reward imbalance was associated with diabetes only in men, not in women.

"We have demonstrated that there is a social gradient in incidence of type 2 diabetes in middle-aged men and women in white-collar occupations," write the researchers. "In addition, we show that effort-reward imbalance is associated with incidence of type 2 diabetes in men only," the researchers write.