Physical demands at work, physical fitness, and 30-year ischaemic heart disease and all-cause mortality in the Copenhagen Male Study

Does aerobic exercise improve or impair cardiorespiratory fitness and health among cleaners? A cluster randomized controlled trial

“…The improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness, aerobic workload, RHR and SHR may reduce the risk of all-cause as well as CVD mortality (3,7,26,56,57). On the other hand, the intervention significantly increased systolic BP, which may result in an increased risk of CVD and all-cause mortality (59,63).…”

“…Previous research has linked higher levels of aerobic workload with accelerated progression of atherosclerosis (22) and incidence of myocardial infarction (7). Clearly, there is a need to develop interventions that safely reduce aerobic workload and cardiovascular risk among high-risk occupational groups experiencing a high level of occupational physical activity (3).…”

“…An imbalance between physical work demands and cardiorespiratory fitness can be targeted either by reducing physical work demands or enhancing cardiorespiratory fitness (3,9) or the combination thereof. To our knowledge, a reduction of the relative aerobic workload by aerobic exercise has not yet been shown to be successful among blue-collar workers.…”

“…The risk for CVD is especially strong among workers who have high levels of occupational physical activity combined with low cardiorespiratory fitness (2,3). Compared to a worker with high cardiorespiratory fitness, workers with low cardiorespiratory fitness experience a higher relative aerobic workload when performing the same physical work task (4).…”

Fitness, work, and leisure-time physical activity and ischaemic heart disease and all-cause mortality among men with pre-existing cardiovascular disease

“…In two recent publications from the Copenhagen Male Study, we found that men exposed to high physical demands at work were at an increased risk of mortality from ischaemic heart disease (IHD) (1,2). This increased risk was particularly pronounced among men who were physically inactive during leisure time and those who had a low physical fitness.…”