It’s true: working too hard can drive you to drink, researchers said on Wednesday as they warned of the health risks of such dual excess. 
 
 
 
 An overview of studies covering more than 400,000 people showed that individuals who exceed 48 working hours per week are likelier to consume “risky” quantities of alcohol, they said. 
 
 The paper, published in the British Medical Journal, reported that long working hours boosted the likelihood of higher alcohol intake by 11% overall. 
 
 People who worked 49-54 hours a week ran a 13% higher risk of developing a “risky alcohol use” habit compared to counterparts who worked a 35-40-hour work week. 
 
 Those working 55 hours or more were 12% more at risk. 
 
 “Risky” alcohol use was defined as more than 14 units per week for a woman and more than 21 for a man - levels that have been linked to a higher risk for liver and heart disease, cancer, stroke and mental disorders. 
 
 An alcohol unit is the equivalent of a third of a pint of medium-strength beer, half a 175ml (six fluid ounces) glass of red wine with 12% alcohol by volume, or a 25ml shot of whisky, 
 
 The findings add statistical backing to anecdotal evidence for a link between excessive work and alcohol abuse, the authors said. 
 
 More than a dozen developed economies were covered by the research, including Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan and the United States. 
 
 “This meta-analysis supports the longstanding suspicion that among workers subjected to long working hours, alcohol can seem like a fast acting and effective way to dull work-related aches and pains and smooth the transition between work life and home life,” Cassandra Okechukwu of the Harvard School of Public Health wrote in an editorial. 
 
 Long working hours have previously been linked to cardiovascular disease, depression and anxiety. 
 
 The increased risk of developing a “risky” drinking habit from over-work was small in absolute terms, Okechukwu said. Also, having a job was associated with a lower prevalence of alcohol consumption and a higher chance of recovery from alcohol misuse than being unemployed. 
 
 Even so, the risk should be taken seriously. 
 
 “Any exposure associated with avoidable increases in disease or health damaging behaviour, or both, warrants careful examination,” said Okechukwu. 
 
 “Indeed, these findings could add impetus to further regulation of working hours as a public health intervention.” ||||| Work hard, drink hard. People who work more than 48 hours a week drink more heavily and are more likely to develop risky levels of alcohol consumption, the largest ever study of working patterns and alcohol finds. 
 
 An analysis of 61 studies from 14 countries, including the US, UK, Australia and Germany, found that those who work longer hours are 11 per cent more likely to be heavy drinkers than people who work a standard week of around 40 hours. 
 
 The study is also the first to examine how likely people who start working longer hours are to acquire dangerous drinking habits. By analysing cohort studies, which follow the same people over long periods of time, Marianna Virtanen at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Helsinki and her colleagues found that people working 49 to 54 hours a week were 13 per cent more likely to start drinking at "risky" levels. This is defined as 14 drinks a week for women, and 21 drinks a week for men. 
 
 A tonic for the masses 
 
 "There was some evidence from previous studies that working long hours may be associated with unhealthy lifestyle, such as low physical activity and high alcohol use," says Virtanen. But these studies had never been brought together or combined with a wealth of unpublished data, she says. 
 
 Altogether, their analysis took in data from over 330,000 people, and found that a longer working week was associated with heavier drinking regardless of gender, geographical region or socioeconomic group. 
 
 The study provides strong backing for the European Union Working Time Directive, which gives European workers the right to work no more than a 48-hour week. But many employees still end up putting in over 50 hours in an effort to earn faster promotions or strive for a living wage through overtime. 
 
 Booze may offer a way to unwind. "We think that some people may cope with excess working hours with habits that are unhealthy, such as using alcohol," says Virtanen. "The symptoms they try to alleviate with alcohol may include stress, depression and sleep disturbances." 
 
 Journal reference: The BMJ, DOI: 10.1136/bmj.g7772 
 
 If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to. ||||| Cassandra A Okechukwu , assistant professor 1Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Kresge Building, Boston, MA 02115, USA cokechuk{at}hsph.harvard.edu 
 
 Policy makers should think carefully before exempting more workers from restrictions on working hours 
 
 In a linked paper, Virtanen and colleagues (doi:10.1136/bmj.g7772) present a meta-analysis combining published studies (34 cross sectional, n=139 112; two longitudinal, n=6873) with unpublished data (27 cross sectional, n=194 581; 18 longitudinal, n=93 729) to explore associations between long working hours and use of alcohol.1 They found that exposure to long working hours was associated with higher odds of alcohol use in cross sectional studies. Also, compared with working 35-40 hours a week, those working 49-54 and ≥55 hours experienced higher incidence of new onset risky alcohol use (>14 drinks/week in women; >21 drinks/week in men). 
 
 They found no heterogeneity in the tested associations based on sex, socioeconomic class, or geographic regions. This meta-analysis supports the longstanding suspicion that among workers subjected to long working hours, alcohol can seem like a fast acting and effective way to dull work related aches and pains and smooth the transition between work life and home life.2 3 Indeed, these findings could add impetus to further regulation of working hours as a public health intervention. If so, those participating in the policy debate should bear in mind …
– Working more than a standard 40-hour workweek (if that "standard" still even exists) won't only shave away at your R&R time: It may also cause you to drink more, the Guardian reports. Researchers found that individuals who put in 49 to 54 hours a week were 13% more likely to suck down "risky" amounts of alcohol than those who work 35 to 40 hours, while the poor dears who toiled away for 55 hours or more had a 12% higher risk, according to a study in the British Medical Journal. For the purposes of this study, "risky" alcohol use was considered to be more than 14 drinks a week for women or 21 drinks a week for men, the Los Angeles Times reports. The study used cross-sectional analysis of 61 studies with nearly 334,000 subjects from 14 countries, as well as additional "prospective" analysis of 20 more studies that looked at 100,000 people from nine countries. So why do those who put in so many hours put in more appearances at happy hour? A few theories: They may be decompressing from work stresses; it's built into their personalities (the same folks who work hard can't help but play hard); or those who suffer from insomnia or depression may take longer to work and be more apt to pick up the bottle, notes the Times. Although work-health expert Cassandra Okechukwu wrote in the study's accompanying editorial that those who have jobs experience lower rates of "problem alcohol consumption" and better recovery rates from alcohol abuse than the unemployed, these results warrant further examination: They indicate about 2 million people are adopting risky alcohol habits across labor forces in the participating nations. "Long working hours is an exposure that we cannot afford to ignore," Okechukwu writes. (Binge drinking could mess up your immune system.)