Study: Not Even Running Will Save You From 'Sitting Disease'
By Chelsea Karnash
BATON ROUGE, LA (CBS) – A new study should strike fear in the hearts of those who spend their 9-to-5 sitting at a desk.
According to research from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the adverse health effects of prolonged sitting are widespread – regardless of race, sex, socioeconomic status, medical history, diet and physical activity.
The research, which controlled for multiple factors and examined nearly 5,000 adults who self-reported daily sitting time, not only found that sitting increases a person's risk of diabetes and heart disease. It also found that not even daily physical activity such as running is enough to counteract the effects of sitting for prolonged periods.
Even worse, "prolonged periods" actually means as little as four hours a day – far less than the majority of workers average.
"Self-reported sitting time was associated with adverse cardiometabolic risk factors consistently across sex and race groups in a representative US sample, independent of other risk factors," the study concludes. "Excessive sitting warrants a public health concern."
The only remedy? Standing up. Hear that corporate leaders? Bring on the standing desks!
