Researchers found that being out of work was associated with an increased risk of heart attack, and this risk rose each extra time someone was fired or made redundant.
Dr Matthew Dupre and colleagues from Duke University in the US examined the associations between different lengths of unemployment and the risks for acute myocardial infarction or AMI in more than 13,000 Americans aged 51 to 75, the Daily Mail reported.
"Although the risks for AMI were most significant in the first year after job loss, unemployment status, cumulative number of job losses and cumulative time unemployed were each independently associated with increased risk for AMI," Dupre said.
In the study group, 14 per cent were unemployed at the start, 69.7 per cent had one or more cumulative job losses, and 35.1 per cent had spent time unemployed.
Statistical analysis indicated that AMI risks were significantly higher among the unemployed and that risks increased incrementally from one job loss to four or more cumulative job losses compared with no job loss.
The risks of a heart attack were 'particularly elevated' within the first year of unemployment but not thereafter, according to the study.
"We found that the elevated risks associated with multiple job losses were of the magnitude of other traditional risk factors, such as smoking, diabetes mellitus and hypertension," Dupre said.
The findings were published in the journal Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine.
