Young women with stressful jobs are being warned they could be at higher risk of heart disease.

While it is already known that high-flying jobs are linked to the condition, previous studies have largely focused on men.

In the latest study, women who said their work pressures were a little too high were 25 per cent more likely to suffer heart disease than those who said their job was manageable.

But those who said their work pressures were much too high were 35 per cent more likely to suffer after lifestyle factors, such as whether they smoked, were taken into account.

The research, published in the journal Occupational And Environmental Medicine, looked at the impact of work pressure on heart disease risk among 12,116 nurses taking part in the Danish Nurse Cohort Study.

The nurses were all aged between 45 and 64 at the start of the study in 1993, and were followed for a period of 15 years.

By 2008, 580 women had been admitted to hospital with heart disease, of which 138 had suffered a heart attack, 369 had angina and 73 had another type of heart disease.

In a separate analysis on the same group, researchers found that women who felt themselves to be moderately pressurised in the five years up to 1998 were 60 per cent more likely to have heart disease than those who were not pressured at work.

Meanwhile, women who said they faced excessive pressures at work were almost twice as likely to have heart disease.