""" Significant relationships were found between the amount of standing at work and atherosclerotic progression. After adjustment for the heaviness of the work, psychosocial job factors, income, and biological and behavioral risk factors, the mean change in maximum IMT for those standing not at all, a little, a lot, and very much was 0.24, 0.25, 0.28, and 0.33 mm, respectively. For men with IHD the respective changes were 0.08, 0.15, 0.37, and 0.75 mm -- a 9-fold difference between the no-exposure and high-exposure group. For the men with carotid stenosis, the respective difference was 3-fold. """

Do I read this correctly in saying that for men without IHD, the ones who stood all day had their artery walls thicken by 0.33mm over four years while those who stood not at all had theirs thicken by 0.24mm? And that the nine-fold increase is only for people with ischaemic heart disease? So the article is wrong: it's not 900% but 37% in people who don't have IHD?

The idea is that thicker artery walls are associated with heart disease, right? Is there reason to believe the relationship is linear? Otherwise we can't say that because we saw a nine-fold difference in delta IMT that we expect a ninefold increase in risk.