LC–MS Links Job Stress to Changes in Blood Lipids

Stress at work is a common problem and has been linked to poorer mental health and a higher risk of heart and metabolic conditions such as diabetes. However, scientists still do not fully understand how job stress affects the body’s chemistry. In this study, researchers set out to identify changes in the blood linked to job stress and to pinpoint which of the body’s chemical processes might be involved. They analyzed blood samples taken after an overnight fast using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), giving a broad picture of the chemicals present. A paper based on their findings was published in the journal Metabolites.¹

What Is Job Stress?

Job stress is what happens, both mentally and physically, when the demands of a job are more than a person feels able to handle, whether because of limited resources, too little control over their work, or not enough ability to cope.² It has become more and more common in today’s workplaces and is now seen as a significant cause of both mental and physical health problems. For example, a study of hospital resident doctors found that of 278 who responded, 169 (60.8%) reported moderate stress and 105 (37.8%) reported high stress.³Another large study of 9,658 people found that 26.7% were experiencing low levels of job stress, while 18.1% were experiencing high levels.⁴

How Can Metabolomics Help Us Understand Its Effects of Job Stress on the Body?

Metabolomics offers a way to see how things like our surroundings and the stresses of daily life ultimately affect our body chemistry.^5,6Rather than measuring just one marker in the body, metabolomics looks at many molecules at once, giving a big-picture view of how the body’s chemistry adjusts or goes off balance. This can help show how stress makes people more likely to develop disease.⁷

However, even with this progress that metabolomics has brought to analytics, scientists still know relatively little about how job stress changes the body’s chemistry, especially in people whose jobs place heavy demands on them every day. Existing approaches have been useful, but they do not fully explain how the stress of work leads, over time, to a higher risk of disease. On top of that, the chemical changes linked to job stress may vary depending on a person’s job, sex, lifestyle, and how much stress they are under, which is why studies focused on specific groups of workers are needed.¹

How Was the Study Carried Out, and What Did It Reveal About How Job Stress Affects Blood Chemistry?

The researchers recruited 195 men aged 20 to 60 who worked in manufacturing in Fuzhou, China. After removing people who did not meet the study’s requirements and those with unusual results, 143 workers were included in the final analysis: 78 who were experiencing job stress and 65 who were not. To measure job stress, the workers filled out a standard Chinese questionnaire about their jobs. It is based on the idea that stress comes from a mismatch between how much is demanded of a person at work and how much control they have over how they do it. Workers whose job demands outweighed their sense of control were placed in the stress group. Blood samples were then taken after an overnight fast and analyzed using LC-MS. The team then used several statistical methods to find molecules whose levels differed between the two groups, and the online analysis tool MetaboAnalyst to work out which of the body’s chemical processes those molecules were involved in.¹

The researchers found 12 molecules in the blood that were linked to job stress, even after accounting for other factors that could affect the results. Most of these were fats, including lipid species such as phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), diacylglycerol (DG), and free fatty acids. Five of the molecules (M573T1, M264T3, M673T5, M686T27 and M569T1) were reasonably good at telling stressed workers apart from those who were not stressed. When the team looked at which chemical processes in the body these molecules were involved in, seven stood out. The clearest of these was glycerophospholipid metabolism, the process the body uses to make and break down the fats that form cell membranes.¹

“Untargeted plasma metabolomics,” write the authors of the paper,¹ “revealed distinct metabolic differences associated with job stress, particularly in relation to lipid metabolism and membrane remodeling pathways. These findings provide preliminary evidence supporting the utility of metabolomics in exploring occupational stress-related metabolic signatures and identifying exploratory candidate markers for further validation.”

Read More on Similar Topics
LC–MS/MS Tracks Stress Hormones in Burnout Study

References

1. Li, G.; Liao, J.; Liu, P. et al. Untargeted Plasma Metabolomics Reveals Metabolic Differences Associated with Job Stress in Manufacturing Workers: A Cross-Sectional Study. Metabolites 2026, 16 (10), 790. DOI: 10.3390/metabo16100790
2. He, S.C.; Wu, S.; Wang, C. et al. Interaction Between Job Stress and the BDNF Val66Met Polymorphism Affects Depressive Symptoms in Chinese Healthcare Workers. J. Affect. Disord. 2018, 236, 157–163. DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2018.04.089
3. Hassan, N.M.; Abu-Elenin, M.M.; Elsallamy, R.M. et al. Job Stress Among Resident Physicians in Tanta University Hospitals, Egypt. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 2020, 27, 37557–37564. DOI: 10.1007/s11356-020-08271-9
4. Junior, I.G.O.; Camelo, L.V.; Mill, J.G et al. Job Stress and Heart Rate Variability: Findings from the ELSA-Brasil Cohort. Psychosom. Med. 2019, 81, 536–544. DOI: 10.1097/PSY.0000000000000708
5. Muthubharathi, B.C.; Gowripriya, T.; Balamurugan, K. Metabolomics: Small molecules that matter more. Mol. Omics 2021, 17, 210–229. DOI: 10.1039/d0mo00176g
6. Johnson, C.H.; Ivanisevic, J.; Siuzdak, G. Metabolomics: Beyond Biomarkers and Towards Mechanisms. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 2016, 17, 451–459. DOI: 10.1038/nrm.2016.25
7. Chourpiliadis, C.; Zeng, Y.; Lovik, A. et al. Metabolic Profile and Long-Term Risk of Depression, Anxiety, and Stress-Related Disorders. JAMA Netw. Open 2024, 7, e244525. DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.4525