When it comes to heart health, whether or not your job is stressful isn't what you should be worried about, according to doctors at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Diet, exercise and risk factors like high cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity are what contribute to a person's chance of having a heart attack.
"In my opinion, executives tend to be very organized and disciplined and often work exercise into their schedules," said Dr. James de Lemos, assistant professor of cardiology at UT Southwestern. "They do not have more heart attacks than the rest of the population. People with less-stressful jobs are just as susceptible to heart attacks."
Decoding the genetic roots of stroke and heart attack