Too Much Sitting Can Be Bad for Health

(Ivanhoe Newswire) – With how much sitting is involved with many office jobs and recreational activities such as watching television, people can spend a fairly significant portion of their waking hours sitting down. It turns out that all that sitting could be bad for a person’s health. A recent study found that sitting for long periods of time can increase an individual’s risk of diabetes, heart disease, and death.

The study was led by led by Dr. Emma Wilmot, a research fellow in the Diabetes Research Group at the University of Leicester, who along with her colleagues combined the results of 18 studies and included a total of 794,577 participants.

Researchers found that people who sit for long periods of time have a two-fold increase in their risk of diabetes, heart disease, and death even if they met physical activity guidelines.

So even if you exercise regularly, too much sitting can be detrimental to your future health.

"The average adult spends 50-70% of their time sitting so the findings of this study have far reaching implications. By simply limiting the time that we spend sitting, we may be able to reduce our risk of diabetes, heart disease and death," Dr. Wilmot was quoted as saying.

The study also found that the long periods of sitting had the closest association with diabetes, meaning that anyone at high risk of developing diabetes should be especially cautious with how much they are sitting.

But reducing the amount of time spent sitting down during the day can be a difficult feat since many jobs and recreational activities involve some degree of sitting, especially for those people working in an office.

The researchers have some suggestions of how people can spend less time sitting:

"There are many ways we can reduce our sitting time, such as breaking up long periods at the computer at work by placing our laptop on a filing cabinet. We can have standing meetings, we can walk during the lunch break, and we can look to reduce TV viewing in the evenings by seeking out less sedentary behaviours," co-investigator of the study Professor Stuart Biddle of Loughborough University was quoted as saying.

Switching up your daily routine so that you’re on your feet more may just help you live longer without too much fuss.

(Source: Diabetologia, October, 2012)

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