E-Mail Sophia Antipolis, 9 April 2021: The first large study showing that leisure time physical activity and occupational physical activity have opposite, and independent, associations with cardiovascular disease risk and longevity is published today in European Heart Journal, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 "We adjusted for multiple factors in our analysis, indicating that the relationships were not explained by lifestyle, health conditions or socioeconomic status," said study author Professor Andreas Holtermann of the National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends physical activity during both recreation and work to improve health.2 Previous studies have suggested that occupational activity is related to an increased risk for heart disease and mortality but have been too small to fully explain whether this was due to the manual work or because employees had unhealthy lifestyles or low socioeconomic status (e.g. low level of education).