Healthcare professionals spend their careers managing the cardiometabolic risks of others, yet evidence consistently shows that physicians themselves face a disproportionately high burden of hypertension, dyslipidemia, impaired glucose tolerance, and early cardiovascular changes. Long shifts, interrupted sleep, irregular meals, sedentary clinic hours, and chronic stress all contribute to a risk profile that often goes unnoticed until a major event occurs. Recent observational studies highlight that clinicians show higher rates of elevated blood pressure during on-call weeks, increased heart rate variability suppression during prolonged duty periods, and rising HbA1c trends compared to age-matched controls in non-medical professions.
Physicians with high night-shift frequency and administrative load demonstrate the greatest metabolic disruption. Small behavioural and environmental…
