The survey further reveals that night shift workers are 52% more at risk than day workers of suffering a stroke or heart attack. People in these working shifts also have higher levels of unhealthy behavior such as eating junk food, sleeping badly and not exercising, which are linked to heart problems.

Assocham’s Health committee Chairman Dr. B K Rao said, “Shift work has long been known to disrupt the body clock and be linked to high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes”.

Around 55 per cent of the survey respondents fall under the age bracket of 20-29 years, followed by 30-39 years (26 per cent), 40-49 years (16 per cent), 50-59 years (2 per cent) and 60-69 years (approximately 1 per cent).

The report included the major cities such as Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabd, Pune, Chandigarh, and Dehradun, etc. A little over 200 employee were selected from each city on an average. Delhi ranks first afflicted to heart disease followed by Bangalore (2nd), Mumbai (3rd), Ahemdabad (4th) Chandigarh (5th), Hyderbad (6th) and Pune (7th). 

The survey was able to target corporate employees from 18 broad sectors, with maximum share contributed by employees from IT/ITes and BPO sector (17 per cent).

Employees working in engineering and telecom sector contributed 9 per cent and 8 per cent respectively in the questionnaire. Nearly 6 per cent of the employees belonged from market research/KPO and media background each. Management, FMCG and Infrastructure sector employees share is 5 per cent each, in the total survey.

Respondents from power and real estate sector contributed 4 per cent each. Employees from education and food& beverages sector provided a share of 3 per cent each. Advertising, manufacturing and textiles employees offered a share of 2 per cent each in the survey results.

The shift work defined as evening shifts, irregular or unspecified shifts, mixed schedules, night shifts and rotating shifts. The survey also contained day workers or the general population for comparison. Shift work was associated with a 52 per cent increased risk of heart attack, 28 per cent rise in coronary events and 10 per cent extra strokes.

Dr. Rao also said that corporate as well as shift workers should be educated about cardiovascular symptoms in an effort to prevent or avert the earliest clinical manifestations of disease.

Spondylosis (5 per cent), cervical (3 per cent), asthma (2 per cent), slip disk (2 per cent) and arthritis (1.5 per cent) are the diseases that are mostly suffered by corporate employees.

As per the survey results, smoking alone is estimated to be responsible for 22 per cent of cardiovascular diseases in industrialized countries, and for the vast majority of some cancers and chronic respiratory diseases. Eighty percent of coronary heart diseases, 90 percent of type II diabetes and one-third of cancers can be prevented by maintaining proper diets, increasing exercise and stop smoking, adds the survey.