Stress increases blood fat, study shows

Work stress is associated with increased blood fats, according to a study from the Ibermutuamur Prevention Society, in collaboration with experts from the Hospital Virgen de la Victoria in Malaga and the University of Santiago de Compostela.

The study, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health and collected by the Sync platform, has been carried out on a sample of more than 90,000 employees who performed a medical examination.

“Workers who reported having experienced difficulty dealing with work over the last twelve months — 8.7 percent of the sample — presented a higher risk of dyslipidemia,” said clinical psychologist and expert in workplace stress, Carlos Catalina.

Dyslipidemias or dyslipidemias are flipoprotein disorders of the metabolism, which can be manifested by elevation of the total cholesterol, low density lipoproteins (LDL) and triglyceride concentrations, and a decrease in high-density lipoprotein (HDL).

Specifically, according to the study, workers with work stress were more likely to suffer abnormally high levels of LDL cholesterol, very low levels of HDL cholesterol and positive atherogenic indices or potential clogging of the arteries.

“One of the mechanisms that could explain the relationship between stress and cardiovascular risk could be changes in the lipid profile, which would be a greater accumulation of atheromatous plaque (lipid deposition) in the arteries,” concluded the expert.