Executive Heart Myth

Despite a small but growing body of medical evidence to the contrary, the idea persists that heart disease is one of the prices paid for occupational success. The greater the ambition and stress that is part of continued job promotion, so the "Executive Heart" myth goes, the greater the incidence of heart trouble. Last week, at a joint meeting in Boston of the American College of Physicians and London's Royal College of Physicians, Dr.Lawrence E. Hinkle Jr. of Cornell University Medical College reported the results of a five-year study that makes the opposite point:the more successful the executive, the less heart trouble he is likely to have.

Hinkle, head of Cornell's Human Ecology Division, and seven other medical researchers reached this conclusion after studying the health histories of 270,000 male employees of the Bell Sys tem -- a string of companies that extend from New England to California. Like many physicians, Hinkle believed that movement to higher and higher levels of executive responsibility increased the chances for heart trouble. But, says Hinkle, "the story did not come out that way."

Link with Education. Investigating 6,347 absences and deaths caused by heart disease, Hinkle and his colleagues found that workmen, foremen and clerical employees experienced more heart ailments and coronary deaths than managerial personnel at all age levels. In fact, the incidence of heart ailments decreased on each succeeding higher rung of the executive ladder. Supported by funds from the National Heart Institute, the study also showed that the most rapidly promoted men suffered no more -- and usually less -- heart dis ease than employees who remained at lower levels. Managers transferred from one Bell System company to another--considered prime stress targets because of the domestic and professional adjustments involved in the move -- exhibited no more coronary troubles than those who had never been transferred.

Studying Bell statistics for the reasons behind the difference, Hinkle and his research team found a link with education and, more important, family background. The figures showed that Bell's college-educated employees had a disabling-coronary-disease rate 30% lower than the company's noncollege workers. Behind the statistic there ap peared to be a significant difference in family health and diet patterns that persisted throughout the employees' adult hood. Most of the college men came from smaller, healthier families. They were slimmer, taller, smoked and ate less. Their fathers lived longer. The differences may have spelled better care for themselves -- and their hearts.

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