Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Fire fighters’ jobs, lifestyles lead to cardiovascular risks – study
WITH the annual fire season on the horizon, experts are sounding the alarm early about the need to improve the occupational health of fire fighters.
This is after a study indicated that fire fighters may be at risk of developing cardiovascular diseases (CVD) due to the nature of their job.
The study, conducted by University of the Western Cape doctoral students, aimed to assess the knowledge and attitude towards health and CVD risk factors among 110 fire fighters were sampled from the City of Cape Town Fire and Rescue Service.
The study found among the fire fighters who presented with CVD risk factors, age was a risk factor in 39.6% of male fire fighters, 24.5% had hypertension, 19.1% had dyslipidemia, 18.2% were cigarette smokers, 14.5% had a family history of CVD, and 10.9% had diabetes.
Furthermore, the study found 35% of fire fighters indicated they were light smokers who smoked up to nine cigarettes per day, 35% were intermediate smokers who smoked 10 to 19 per day, and 30% were heavy smokers, smoking more than 20 a day.
While the majority are seen to be in good health, registered biokineticist and PHD candidate Jaron Ras said that a problem arises when considering that, with age, fire fighters become more susceptible to CVD because ageing causes slow deterioration in the body’s physiological processes.
“The research has indicated that fire fighters often have concerns regarding overweight and hypertension, which may be particularly related to the stressful and unpredictable nature of their occupations. Firefighters often opt for foods which are easily available and high in calories, causing both high blood pressure and weight gain. This is, likely, the cause of the high prevalence of high cholesterol in fire fighters, which is often diet-related.
“Firefighters are quite knowledgeable about CVD; however, they lack access to health professionals’ expertise on how to reduce the incidence of developing cardiovascular disease risk factors,” said Ras.
He said the stressful nature of fire fighting, along with the constant irregular sleep-wake cycles causes fire fighters to develop blood pressure issues, as well as overeating, due to the increased hunger caused by insufficient sleep.
“In addition, the fire fighters regularly engaged in physical activity and noted that they exercised to be fit for fire fighting; however, this does not offset the development of cardiovascular disease. This may, also, be in part due to the constant chemical and fume inhalation which has been known to augment the development of cardiovascular disease,” said Ras.
Lloyd Leach, associate professor at UWC’s Department of Sport, Recreation and Exercise Science, said the research was important because it not only looks at explaining why fire fighters in the City experience coronary artery disease risk factors and multiple health risk behaviours, but it also quantifies the various types of coronary artery disease risk factors, work-related musculoskeletal injuries and the multiple health risk behaviours fire fighters in the City experience.
“Possible solutions to address these problems revolve around, firstly, creating awareness of the health problems and burden of disease prevalent among fire fighters and, secondly, to provide comprehensive support through education and training, such as workshops, education clinics, regular screening and identifying the presence of risk factors early in life. Over the long-term, recruiting health-care professionals, such as biokineticists, dietitians and psychologists, among others, to support the firefighters would go a long way in addressing and remedying the situation,” said Leach.