White-collar workers, both male and female, with high levels of job stress are at 33 percent increased risk of having higher blood pressure levels. The effects of little or no social support from supervisors and co-workers cause even higher levels.

Researchers observed stress and blood pressure levels in white-collar men and women, ages 18 to 65, over a seven-and-a-half year period in Quebec City. Study subjects filled out questionnaires surveying their exercise and smoking habits, their family history of heart disease, and their experience of work and social life.

At the end of the study, the most pronounced effects were seen in men -- though women were not exempt from the effects of job stress on blood pressure levels. Men who experienced high levels of job stress over the seven-year period measured out two points higher in blood pressure than men who experienced no job stress. This is equivalent to the increase in blood pressure of men who live sedentary lives, researchers note.

According to a Leeds University study in Britain, women who work long hours are more likely to react negatively to stress than their male counterparts. Work stress causes women to eat unhealthy food, drink coffee and smoke more.

Researchers claim that women are more vulnerable to work stress and thus become 'emotional eaters'-- reasoning that women try to escape themselves and their experience of stress by turning their attention to food. Male workers intake of caffeine, nicotine and calories are apparently not affected by working long hours. Perhaps some form of self-stress-management technique could help these women avoid the consumptive disturbance caused by overwork-- so they can avoid the contribution the extra calories and stress hormones make toward heart disease.