While new research has found that some firefighters suffer occupation related Heart disease this follows research 10 years earlier that firefighters suffer statistically significant hearing loss early in their careers.
These conclusions of research are published in the July 2011 and July 2001 Journals of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
An Abstract of the Heart Disease Article is published below :
“Objective: To determine the association of cardiovascular risk markers with noninvasive imaging of atherosclerosis in firefighters.
Methods: Cross-sectional investigation of subclinical atherosclerosis with metabolic, work related, and life-style variables in 296 professional firefighters.
Results: Calcified coronary atherosclerosis (CAC), carotid arterial intimal thickness (CIMT), and electrocardiogram provided independent CVD assessments. Homeostatic Model Assessment (HOMA) concentrations were related to heart-rate-corrected QT (QTc) (slope ± SE: 2.16 ± 65, P = 0.001), average common CIMT (0.019 ± 0.005 mm, P = 0.0005), and total CAC lesions (0.269 ± 0.116, P = 0.02). Stepwise linear regression selected fasting insulin as the strongest predictor for QTc, HOMA as the strongest predictor of average CIMT, and fasting glucose as the strongest predictor of total coronary lesion number and score.
Conclusion: Firemen’s HOMA and fasting insulin and glucose concentrations were significantly associated with three measures of CVD. Aspects of insulin resistance are related to CVD risk among firefighters.”
In the 2001 Article on Hearing Loss the researchers make the point that up to then most research on hearing loss amongst firefighters had concentrated on a substantial part or indeed the whole of the firefighter’s career.
The research findings were based ion an examination of 118 firefighters (all males), who applied for an LGV licence over a two and a half year period.
An Abstract of the Hearing Loss Article is published below :
“We investigated firefighters’ hearing relative to general population data to adjust for age-expected hearing loss. For five groups of male firefighters with increasing mean ages, we compared their hearing thresholds at the 50th and 90th percentiles with normative and age- and sex-matched hearing data from the International Standards Organization (databases A and B). At the 50th percentile, from a mean age of 28 to a mean age of 53 years, relative to databases A and B, the firefighters lost an excess of 19 to 23 dB, 20 to 23 dB, and 16 to 19 dB at 3000, 4000, and 6000 Hz, respectively. At the 90th percentile, from a mean age of 28 to a mean age of 53 years, relative to databases A and B, the firefighters lost an excess of 12 to 20 dB, 38 to 44 dB, 41 to 45 dB, and 22 to 28 dB at 2000, 3000, 4000, and 6000 Hz, respectively. The results are consistent with accelerated hearing loss in excess of age-expected loss among the firefighters, especially at or above the 90th percentile.”