Combined effects of shift work and life-style on the prevalence of insomnia, sleep deprivation and daytime sleepiness.

Objectives: The combined effects of age, leisure-time physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption, and different forms of shift work on the prevalence of sleep complaints and daytime sleepiness were studied among workers in industry, transport, and traffic.

Methods: Altogether 3020 subjects were studied using a psychosocial questionnaire. The participants were currently employed men, aged 45-60 years, from a postal and telecommunication agency, the railway company, and 5 industrial companies.

Shift work, occupation and coronary heart disease over 6 years of follow-up in the Helsinki Heart Study.

Objectives: The risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) in shift work and the possible pathways for CHD in industrial workers were studied along with the importance of shift work as an occupational class gradient of CHD risk.

Methods: Data from a psychosocial questionnaire and on life-style factors, blood pressure, and serum lipid levels were used for a follow-up study of a cohort of 1806 workers. CHD was determined from official Finnish registers.

Alcohol and coronary heart disease: the roles of HDL-cholesterol and smoking.

Objectives: To study the role of HDL-cholesterol (HDLc) in the causal pathway mediating the effect of alcohol on coronary heart disease (CHD).

Design: Cox proportional hazard models were used to compare the relative CHD risks in various HDLc-smoking categories.

Setting: A prospective, multicentre, placebo-controlled, double-blind CHD primary prevention trial with gemfibrozil in primary (occupational) health care units, the Helsinki Heart Study.

Effects of hypertension and dyslipidemia on the decline in renal function.

Experimental evidence suggests that in addition to hypertension, serum lipids might also accelerate the decline in renal function. We tested this hypothesis in 2702 dyslipidemic middle-aged men without renal disease participating in the Helsinki Heart Study, a coronary primary prevention trial. The decline in renal function was estimated from linear regression slopes based on reciprocals of 10 serum creatinine determinations over the study period.