TY - JOUR
T1 - Association of general fatigue with cellular immune indicators among healthy white-collar employees
AU - Nakata, Akinori
AU - Irie, Masahiro
AU - Takahashi, Masaya
N1 - Funding Information:
Covariates included sex, age (in years), education (in years), marital status (unmarried/married), smoking (number of cigarettes smoked per day), alcohol consumption (g ethanol/week), leisure-time physical activity, subjective sleep sufficiency, height, weight, typical work hours per day, job control, job demands, self-reported illness, and regular medication usage. Alcohol consumption was estimated by asking the usual amount of alcoholic drinks consumed per day multiplied by the number of occasions in a week that alcoholic drinks were consumed. We assessed leisure-time physical activity by calculating the energy expenditure of habitual physical exercise. We asked frequency, type, and length of physical exercise per month and converted these data to metabolic equivalents (METs). 62 Subjective sleep sufficiency was determined by a single question 63 : Do you think your daily sleep is sufficient? Response options were: (1) very insufficient, (2) somewhat insufficient, (3) fairly sufficient, or (4) very sufficient. Height (m) and weight (kg) were measured anthropometrically to assess body mass index (BMI), calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters. Job control and job demands were measured using the Brief Job Stress Questionnaire; both scales consisted of three items. 47 Examples of items include “I can work at my own pace (job control)” and “I have an extremely large amount of work to do (job demands).” These scales were developed with a research grant for Japanese Ministry of Labor with referring to Karasek's Job Content Questionnaire and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Generic Job Stress Questionnaire. 47
Funding Information:
This research was partly supported by the base funding of the Japan National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Kawasaki, Japan.
PY - 2011/9
Y1 - 2011/9
N2 - Objective: Although fatigue is a common complaint in the working population, underlying immunological mechanisms are not well understood. This study investigated the association of general fatigue with cellular immune indicators. Methods: A total of 148 healthy white-collar employees (70% men) underwent a blood draw for the measurement of natural killer (NK), B, and T cell counts as well as NK cell cytotoxicity (NKCC) and completed two different fatigue scales, that is, Profile of Mood State (POMS) and Maastricht Questionnaire (MQ). Results: Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that POMS fatigue score was significantly associated with decreases of NK cells (β =-.407) and NKCC (β =-.215), whereas MQ fatigue score was significantly associated with reduced NK cells (β =-.290) but not with NKCC (β =-.127). Conclusion: The results suggest that general fatigue may be related to impaired NK cell competency among healthy employees.
AB - Objective: Although fatigue is a common complaint in the working population, underlying immunological mechanisms are not well understood. This study investigated the association of general fatigue with cellular immune indicators. Methods: A total of 148 healthy white-collar employees (70% men) underwent a blood draw for the measurement of natural killer (NK), B, and T cell counts as well as NK cell cytotoxicity (NKCC) and completed two different fatigue scales, that is, Profile of Mood State (POMS) and Maastricht Questionnaire (MQ). Results: Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that POMS fatigue score was significantly associated with decreases of NK cells (β =-.407) and NKCC (β =-.215), whereas MQ fatigue score was significantly associated with reduced NK cells (β =-.290) but not with NKCC (β =-.127). Conclusion: The results suggest that general fatigue may be related to impaired NK cell competency among healthy employees.
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U2 - 10.1097/JOM.0b013e318229a938
DO - 10.1097/JOM.0b013e318229a938
M3 - Article
C2 - 21860327
AN - SCOPUS:84860417473
VL - 53
SP - 1078
EP - 1086
JO - Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
JF - Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
SN - 1076-2752
IS - 9
ER -
