Could your commute be a killer?

Updated
Could your commute be a killer?
Could your commute be a killer?

Some of us are lucky enough to be able to walk, cycle or drive just a few minutes to get to work.

But if you have to commute more than 30 miles per day, new research from Sweden suggests that it could be very bad for your health, increasing your risk of high blood pressure, stress and heart disease.

The Daily Mail reports that social geographer Erika Sandow from Sweden's Umeå University has also found that long-distance commuters also take more sick leave and tend to gain more weight.

And Pacific Standard reports that Sandow's latest research indicates that women who live more than 31 miles from their job tend to die sooner than those with live closer to work.

Sandow based her research on data from a database celled Statistics Sweden, covering the period from 1985 to 2008. She looked at workers who were 55 in 1994, and compared those who made long commutes (2,744 of them, most of them men), with those who didn't (56,955).

Her work revealed that the risk of early death is greater for women than men, particularly those who had either a low income or low education. Although the research team don't know why this is, they believe that it could be because women experience more stress because they also tend to have more household responsibilities than men.

Grist reports that Sandow's earlier work revealed that people with long commutes are also 40 per cent more likely to separate or divorce.

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