health Archives - public sector NOMADS

Treadmill Desks

January 31, 2013 By Ken Eastwood Leave a Comment

Many people describe work as something of a treadmill well now you can make that a slightly different reality thanks to TrekDesk, designed to let you workout at work.

The concept enables users to walk on the spot while completing desk-based tasks thereby integrating physical activity into everyday ofﬁce type work.

According to the manufacturers, introducing walking into the workday in this way easily presents a range of health advantages including weight loss, reduced stress, memory improvement and a strengthened immune system.

More details about treadmill desks at www.trekdesk.com

Filed Under: nomadNEWS Tagged With: desk, exercise, health, office, treadmill, workout

Mobile phones “could” cause cancer

June 2, 2011 By Ken Eastwood Leave a Comment

A working group consisting of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified the radiation emitted by mobile handsets as ‘possibly carcinogenic’.

The panel of 31 scientists from 14 countries concluded that there ‘could be some risk’ for phone users.

Dr. Jonathan Samet, chairman of the working group, said, “There could be some risk, and therefore we need to keep a close watch for a link between cell phones and cancer risk”.

Science blogger Ed Yong works for Cancer Research UK. He has written a very nice explanation of what the WHO announcement really means;

“It means that there is some evidence linking mobile phones to cancer, but it is too weak to make any strong conclusions. Specifically, IARC’s panel said that the evidence that mobile phones pose a health risk was “limited” for two types of brain tumours – glioma and acoustic neuroma – and “inadequate” when it comes to other types of cancer.

The Chairman of the group, Dr Jonathan Samet, said, “The conclusion means that there could be some risk, and therefore we need to keep a close watch for a link between cell phones and cancer risk.”

IARC classifies different things according to whether they are likely to cause cancer, from tobacco to viruses to certain jobs. They are the gold standard for this sort of thing. They have five possible categories of risk:

Group 1 is the highest, reserved for things like smoking, asbestos, alcohol and so on. It means that there’s extremely strong evidence that the thing in question causes cancer.

Group 2A includes things that are “probably carcinogenic to humans”. Here, the evidence is “limited” in humans, but “sufficient” from animal studies.

Group 2B – this is the one that mobile phones now fall under – means something is “possibly carcinogenic to humans”. It means there is “limited evidence” that something causes cancer in people, and even the evidence from animal studies is “less than sufficient”. Group 2B means that there is some evidence for a risk but it’s not that convincing. This group ends up being a bit of a catch-all category, and includes everything from carpentry to chloroform.”

It would appear that a decade after the Stewart Report (Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones) we are no further on in our understanding – there is still insufficient evidence to conclude either way whether using a mobile phone does or doesn’t increase the risk of cancer.

The UK government’s ‘precautionary approach’ for mobile phone use, which includes the recommendation that mobile phone use by children for non-essential calls should be discouraged, still stands.

Image: Hello Operator, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from derekolson’s photostream

Filed Under: nomadGENERAL, nomadNEWS Tagged With: health, Mobile, WHO

Health Benefits and Inequalities?

February 17, 2010 By Ken Eastwood Leave a Comment

There is evidence to suggest that flexible working might be beneficial for employees’ health if they are allowed to have input into their own working patterns, a review by Cochrane Researchers suggests. The study may throw some light on potential health benefits associated with current trends towards more flexible working in the UK and Europe.

In Scandinavian countries, flexible working arrangements for employees with families are commonplace. Last year, the UK government extended legislation allowing parents of young children to request flexible working, meaning all parents with children under 16 now have the right to request flexible working arrangements. Although it is assumed that such policies are beneficial, it is important to try to understand health impacts in more detail.

The Cochrane Systematic Review included ten studies involving a total of 16,603 people which focused on various different forms of flexible working. Self-scheduling of working hours was found to have positive impacts on a number of health outcomes including blood pressure, sleep and mental health. In one study, for instance, police officers who were able to change their starting times at work showed significant improvements in psychological wellbeing compared to police officers who started work at a fixed hour.

“Flexible working seems to be more beneficial for health and wellbeing where the individuals control their own work patterns, rather than where employers are in control,” said the review lead, Clare Bambra of the Wolfson Research Institute, Durham University in the UK. “Given the limited evidence base, we wouldn’t want to make any hard and fast recommendations, but these findings certainly give employers and employees something to think about.”

Co-author Kerry Joyce, also based at the Institute, added: “We need to know more about how the health effects of flexible working are experienced by different types of workers, for instance, comparing women to men, old to young and skilled to unskilled. This is important as some forms of flexible working might only be available to employees with higher status occupations and this may serve to increase existing differences in health between social groups.”

Citation: Joyce K, Pabayo R, Critchley JA, Bambra C. Flexible working conditions and their effects on employee health and wellbeing. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2010, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD008009. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD008009.pub2.

Filed Under: nomadNEWS Tagged With: flexible working, health, inequalities