Coffee Shop Workers Have High Blood Pressure Risk

Mon May 26, 2003 02:52 PM ET By Stephanie Riesenman

NEW YORK (<a href=reuters.com>Reuters Health) - Workers in campus coffee shops are more likely to have high blood pressure than other people their age, possibly because they dine on the same salty and high fat foods that they serve to students, according to Venezuelan researchers.

In a small study, the researchers found that long-time workers in coffee shops located on a campus were more likely to have high blood pressure than their peers. They found that 18 percent of workers under age 30 and 41 percent of those over age 30 had high blood pressure, as did 48 percent of workers who were in the occupation for more than five years.

"It is alarming that the people in charge of alimentation in the university suffer a high prevalence of high blood pressure and elevated risk for cardiovascular disease, which means that the students are certainly at high risk for suffering the same consequences," said Dr. Napoleon Gabriel Macias.

Macias, along with colleagues at Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas, measured the blood pressures of 64 workers at six different coffee shops on the school campus.

"People who have worked for many years at a coffee shop having this unhealthy nutrition have more pronounced high blood pressure because they have been exposed to the risk factors for more time," said Macias.

Macias and his colleagues recommend that schools and universities incorporate nutritional education into job training. He says schools should create menus under a nutritionist's supervision to help employees and students eat a balanced diet and lower their risks for cardiovascular disease.

The findings were presented recently at a meeting of the Inter-American Society of Hypertension in San Antonio, Texas.