Sitting for too long could increase your risk of dying – even if you exercise

January 15, 2019  17:21

Are you sitting down? Then you may want to stand up to read this, as research from the US has found that sitting for too long could increase your risk of dying – even if you exercise.

The study found that both total sedentary time and sedentary duration were associated with a higher risk of death. The greatest risk was found in those who spent more than 12.5 hours a day being sedentary and when bouts persisted for longer than ten minutes at a time.

But before you rush out to buy a standing desk, it’s worth pointing out the limitations to this study. For a start, all the 8,000 participants were aged 45 years and older – so may not be representative of other age groups. Also, activity data was only collected for one week, so this might not be representative of activity levels for the entire study (participants were followed for four years).

In the study, a hip-mounted accelerometer – a device that measures the magnitude of accelerations – was used to measure physical activity. While this is a less biased method than asking participants to recall how much sitting or activity they did in a day, it is still problematic. This is because accelerometer data cannot distinguish between postures such as sitting versus standing, despite being different physiologically and potentially valuable to health.

Full article: theinertia.com

Follow NEWS.am Medicine on Facebook and Twitter


 
  • Video
 
 
  • Event calendar
 
 
  • Archive
 
  • Most read
 
  • Find us on Facebook
 
  • Poll
Are you aware that in 2027 medical insurance will become mandatory for all Armenian citizens?
I’m aware, and I'm in favor
I’m not aware, and I'm against
I'm aware, but I'm still undecided
I'm not aware, but in principle I'm in favor
I'm not aware, but in principle I'm against
It doesn't matter to me