Gliomas, in particular, were more common among people who had studied at university for at least three years<\/strong> than they were among those who didn’t go on to higher education, the data show.<\/p>\n The researchers base their findings on more than 4.3 million Swedes, all of whom were born between 1911 and 1961 and living in Sweden in 1991.<\/p>\n They were monitored between 1993 and 2010 to see if they developed a primary brain tumor, and information on educational attainment, disposable income, marital status, and occupation was obtained from national insurance, labour market,and national census data.<\/p>\n During the monitoring period, 1.1 million people died and more than 48,000 emigrated, but 5735 of the men and 7101 of the women developed a brain tumor.<\/p>\n Men with university level education, lasting at least three years, were 19% more likely to develop a glioma<\/strong>–a type of cancerous tumor arising in glial cells that surround and support neurons in the brain–than men whose educational attainment didn’t extend beyond the period of compulsory schooling (9 years).<\/p>\n Among women, the magnitude of risk was 23% higher for glioma, and 16% higher for meningioma<\/strong>–a type of mostly non-cancerous brain tumor arising in the layers of tissue (meninges) that surround and protect the brain and spinal cord–than it was for women who didn’t go on to higher education.<\/p>\n Taking account of potentially influential factors, such as marital status and disposable income, only marginally affected the size of the risk, and only among the men.<\/p>\n High levels of disposable income were associated with a 14% heightened risk of glioma among men<\/strong>, but had no bearing on the risk of either meningioma or acoustic neuroma–a type of non-cancerous brain tumor that grows on the nerve used for hearing and balance.<\/p>\n Nor was disposable income associated with heightened risk of any type of brain tumor among the women.<\/p>\n Occupation also seemed to influence risk for men and women. Compared with men in manual roles, professional and managerial roles (intermediate and high non-manual jobs) were associated with a 20% heightened risk of glioma and a 50% heightened risk of acoustic neuroma<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The risk of glioma was also 26% higher among women in professional and managerial roles than it was for women in manual roles, while the risk of meningioma was 14% higher.<\/p>\n Single men also seemed to have a significantly lower risk of glioma than married\/co-habiting men, but, on the other hand, they had a higher risk of meningioma<\/strong>. No such associations were evident among the women.<\/p>\n This is an observational study so no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect<\/strong><\/span>, and the researchers point out that they were not able to glean information on potentially influential lifestyle factors.<\/p>\n But they emphasise that their findings were consistent, and they point to the strengths of using population data.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the BMJ\u00a0media release: A university degree is linked to a heightened risk of developing a brain tumor, suggests a large observational study, published online in the Journal of Epidemiology… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[357,361,344,319],"tags":[16,42,19,59,62],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19155,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19154\/revisions\/19155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"book_stack\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/book_stack-260x300.jpg\")
A university degree is linked to a heightened risk of developing a brain tumor<\/strong>, suggests a large observational study, published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health<\/em>.<\/p>\n