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Tribune News Service

You can spend a lot of accumulated time on your bottom during a day. Or you can sit for lengthy spells without a break.
Both, it turns out, are very bad for you.
Whether you’re a heavy sitter or a binge-sitter, racking up prolonged sedentary time increases your risk of early death, according to a study published in Tuesday’s edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
That conclusion held up even after researchers took account of mitigating factors, such as time spent exercising. Even for people who hit the gym after a long day in a desk chair, sitting can be deadly.
The findings led the study’s authors to suggest that people who sit a lot should get up and move around every 30 minutes to counter the health risks that come with prolonged sedentary behaviour.
The study team, led by Columbia University exercise researcher Keith Diaz, tracked the movements of almost 8,000 Americans older than 45 by asking them to wear an accelerometer on their hip.
Over a period of 10 days, sitting or lounging behaviour took up the equivalent of 12.3 hours over a 16-hour waking day – about 77 per cent, on average.
Sedentary Hongkongers must get active for health’s sake: survey
That’s a lot of sitting. But subjects differed in the extent to which they hunkered down for long stretches without getting up and moving around. When researchers measured the “bout length” of subjects’ sitting spells, they found that 52 per cent lasted less than a half-hour, 22 per cent lasted between a half-hour and just under an hour, 14 per cent lasted 60 to 89 minutes and 14 per cent went on for more than 90 minutes.
After tracking subjects for four years, the researchers found that subjects who racked up the most time sitting were most likely to have died during the study period, and those who spent the least time sitting were least likely to have died. That was no surprise.
But when they looked at the death rates as a function of how often subjects went long hours without getting up, they saw a similar pattern: Those whose sitting bouts tended to be lengthier were more likely to have died than were those whose sitting spells tended to be shorter.
The authors of the new research caution: “Accumulation of large volumes of sedentary time is a hazardous health behaviour regardless of how it is accumulated.” But logging sedentary time in shorter bouts of sitting “is the least harmful pattern.”
New wave of pedometers can help step up healthy habits
Study participants who racked up the most time in a chair tended to be older, were more likely to smoke, and were disproportionately African-American. They tended to be teetotal, to have a higher body-mass index, and were less likely to get much intentional exercise. They were also more likely to have diabetes, high blood pressure, worrisome cholesterol readings and a history of stroke, atrial fibrillation or coronary heart disease.
Such findings, of course, beg the question of which comes first – the immobility or the illness that leads to death.
“Observational studies, no matter how well designed, cannot imply causality,” says University of Toronto cardiologist Dr David A. Alter.
But the findings of this prospective population-based study do fit with those of experimental studies. In trials involving humans sequestered in research labs, scientists have shown that racking up prolonged, uninterrupted bouts of sitting and lounging cause more worrisome short-term changes in metabolic and cardiovascular function than sedentary behaviour that’s interrupted by periods of physical activity.
Is the 80/20 rule true when it comes to weight loss? Hong Kong naturopath says yes
It only makes sense that those short-term changes translate over time to more profound changes in the risk for diseases linked to sedentary behaviour, says Dr James A. Levine, an obesity expert at the Mayo Clinic who studies the health effects of sitting.
“If you’re sitting too much, you need to do something about it – right now,” says Levine.
The finding that a workout will not undo the harms caused by prolonged sitting is unsurprising, Levine adds.
“Even if you’re a gym goer and think you’re safe on account of your excellent effort, you are not,” says Levine. “No one gets away from this stuff. Excess sitting, this study seems to suggest, is a death sentence.”
Alter worries that people intent on reversing patterns of sedentary behaviour will have a lot on their plates.
To live longer, healthier lives “may require us to count the total number of hours we are sedentary per day, the total number of minutes we sit at a time, the total number of standing breaks we take per hour, the total number of steps we take per day, and the total metabolic equivalent of task-minute volume of exercise we achieve per week,” he says.
“Yikes! That sure is a lot of counting over the course of a lifetime – all to reverse the evolutionary patterns of a society gone lazy,” Alter adds. “Might it not just be easier to return to our origins as hunters and gatherers?”


Get up at least once every 30 minutes. Failure to do so may shorten your life, study finds

Try to minimise the time you spend sitting down.

E93K0J Adult man resting in sofa like a couch potato with remote control on belly

shutterstock_221065726.jpg This shutterstock shot of woman having back pain while sitting at desk in office. [FEATURES] Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK

Lifestyle

Health & Wellness

The amount of time you spend sitting is related to the length of your life, even if you spend hours at the gym, so get out of that chair and start moving around


Get up at least once every 30 minutes. Failure to do so may shorten your life, study finds

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The amount of time you spend sitting is related to the length of your life, even if you spend hours at the gym, so get out of that chair and start moving around

The amount of time you spend sitting is related to the length of your life, even if you spend hours at the gym, so get out of that chair and start moving around