Can overwork kill us?

On May 13, 2002, the Washington Post reported the death of a 19-year-old woman named Li Chunmei, who fainted while working on the production line of a company in China. Hours later, the worker passed away. The press of that country called the work accident with a new name, guolaosi , which results from working 16 hours a day every day of the year . The word is made up of three Chinese ideograms: guo , excess; lao , manual work; and yes , death. That work without measure is not good for health was a proven fact: stress alone causes physical and mental problems. But the new guolaosi syndrome aroused the interest of medical experts in occupational health.