Teaching Is Hazardous to One’s Health, Study Finds

If starting a new school year isn’t stressful enough for teachers, a University of Connecticut researcher now suggests they may be more at risk for developing autoimmune diseases than people in other occupations.

An examination of 11 years of death certificates revealed that teachers were more likely than people in other professions to die from a variety of diseases in which the patients’ own immune systems attack their organs.

The findings, published July 30 in the journal Rheumatology, tend to support the theory that diseases such as multiple sclerosis and lupus may be triggered by exposure to infectious diseases, said Stephen J. Walsh, assistant professor of community medicine at the University of Connecticut Health Center and author of the study.

They also illustrate the need to search for common denominators among about 80 diseases suspected of being autoimmune in nature.

“We should not treat them as unrelated conditions,” Walsh said.

When Walsh and his research team first examined death certificates compiled by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, “we were not that impressed” by data linking autoimmune disorders and teaching, he said.

Overall mortality from 13 autoimmune diseases, which tend to be chronic but are usually not fatal, was 2.3% for teachers, compared with 1.7% for other professions, he said.

But when the researchers examined the data more carefully, they found that teachers ages 35 to 44 were much more likely to die from autoimmune disorders than were their peers in other professions.

“We saw what we would expect to see under the reigning theory of autoimmune diseases,” Walsh said.

One explanation for the study data is that teachers are more likely to be exposed to an infectious agent early in their careers than are people in other professions, which might account for the higher death rates a decade or two later, Walsh said.

The researchers were also surprised that high school teachers had a higher death rate from autoimmune diseases than elementary school teachers, Walsh said.

High school teachers may be more likely to have exposure to Epstein-Barr virus, which causes mononucleosis, a condition that often afflicts teenagers, Walsh noted. Other studies have implicated the virus in the onset of multiple sclerosis and lupus.

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William Hathaway is a reporter for the Hartford Courant, a Tribune company.