Åsmul K, et al. – Long–term cardiovascular impacts of occupational diving were investigated in this current study. Findings reported that in comparison with the general population, male former divers may have a higher prevalence of some cardiovascular symptoms and diseases. In addition, data suggested that diving might have adverse long–term cardiovascular effects.

Methods

• Researchers compared the prevalence of cardiovascular disease in former divers to non-divers.
• They gathered data on male former divers with a certificate valid for professional diving after 1980, from the Norwegian Diver 2011 project, and matched data on the general male population from the HUNT3 Survey.
• They also compared former divers with high and low grades of diving exposure.

Results

• Findings reported that data were available on 768 former divers.
• Researchers found that the prevalence of self-reported high blood pressure in former divers who often omitted a dive-free day after 3 days of strenuous diving was 28% compared with 18% in those who rarely violated these regulations [relative risk (RR) 1.47, confidence interval (CI) 1.01–2.15].
• Also, they noted that the prevalence of myocardial infarction/angina pectoris was 11% in divers with >150 professional dives/year compared with 4% in divers with ≤50 professional dives/year [RR adj. 2.91 (CI 1.23–6.87)] and 16% in divers with >2000 air dives in total relative to 3% in divers with ≤2000 dives [RR adj. 3.05 (CI 1.47–6.34)].