Sitting is not that bad for you

February 7, 2017  22:36

Sitting may not be as deadly as previously thought, a new study claims.

Scientists say that there is a large difference between sitting while watching TV as opposed to sitting at a desk, and the impact on your health.

The popular maxim that 'sitting is the new smoking' has caused many to claim that sedentary lifestyles are not only killing us but that it 'kills more people than HIV' does.

But new research shows that there is a complexity of factors that determine the impact of sitting on human health and that it's not all determined by the hours perched on your bottom.

The study, based at the University of Sydney in Australia, analyzed responses from a long-term 1998 health study completed by middle-aged and older London-based workers.

The participants, who were initially free of diabetes and major cardiovascular disease, were asked to report the amount of time they spent on various sitting behaviors including at work and commuting, leisure time, and watching television.

The researchers then examined clinical data based on blood glucose levels from the same group until the end of 2011 to see if new cases of diabetes occurred over the follow-up period.

In total, 402 cases of incident diabetes occurred during the follow-up period, but there was little evidence for the associations between sitting and diabetes, and most were linked to TV sitting time.

In fact, the London-based workers reported large amounts of walking as well, nearly 45 minutes per day on average.

Lead author Dr Emmanuel Stamatakis, from the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre, said: 'Sitting has attracted a lot of publicity in recent years for being as dangerous as smoking and for being harmful regardless of how physically active people are.

'However, this is one of the very few long-term studies to investigate whether there is a link between sitting behaviors and risk of development of diabetes.

'While these findings don't exonerate sitting, they do suggest that there is far more at play than we previously realized when it comes to sedentary behaviors and the health risks associated with extended sitting.'

Past research has warned about the dangers spent by sitting for too many hours.

New York-based personal trainer Dan Giordano, of Bespoke Treatments Physical Therapy, said that sitting in a chair all day will make the butt saggy, flat, and flabby.

He says it comes down to a lack of blood flow and the way most of us naturally sit and, even worse, the strength of your glutes (gluteus maximus - the muscles in your butt) impacts your pelvic stability, pelvic rotation, and your core.

A 2010 study found that men and women who sat more than six hours a day died earlier than their counterparts who limited sitting time to three hours a day or less.

And according to a more recent 2014 study, sitting for long periods of time increased the risk for colon, endometrial and, possibly, lung cancer.

The study found that even in physically active individuals, sitting increased the risk, and the risk worsened with each two hour increase in sitting time.

 

 

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