Retirement may Kill You

Medscape Medical Minute.

by Dr. George Lundberg.

Is retirement from work blissful or hazardous? Three Greek investigators studied more than 16,000 men and women who were either gainfully employed or already retired between 1994 and 1999 and had not been diagnosed with stroke, coronary artery heart disease, cancer, or diabetes mellitus. Using Cox regression models and controlling for confounders, they analyzed survival status as of 2006. Retirees had a 51% increase in all-cause mortality, mostly from cardiovascular disease. A 5-year increase in age at retirement was associated with a 10% decrease in mortality. This study, reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 2008,^[1] suggests that retirement may be a risk factor for both all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. If you like your work and you like being alive, keep working.

This article is selected from Medscape Best Evidence.