New Delhi:
Do you sit for too long? If yes, than you are at a higher risk of early death than those who sit cumulatively as long, but in shorter bouts, a study has warned.
According to new study, it has been found that adults who sit for one to two hours at a time without moving have a higher mortality rate than adults who accrue the same amount of sedentary time in shorter bouts.
Also, no matter how much you exercise, but people who sit for one to two hours at a time may have a higher risk factor for early death, a new study published Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine found.
"Sit less, move more" is what the American Heart Association encourages all of us to do. But this simplistic guideline doesn't quite cut it, said Keith Diaz, lead author of the new study and an associate research scientist in the Columbia University Department of Medicine.
"This would be like telling someone to just 'exercise' without telling them how," Diaz wrote in an email.
"We think a more specific guideline could read something like, 'For every 30 consecutive minutes of sitting, stand up and move/walk for five minutes at brisk pace to reduce the health risks from sitting,' " he said, adding the study "puts us a step closer to such guidelines," but more research is needed to verify the findings.
“We tend to think of sedentary behaviour as just the sheer volume of how much we sit around each day,” said Keith Diaz, associate research scientist at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) in the US. “But previous studies have suggested that sedentary patterns - whether an individual accrues sedentary time through several short stretches or fewer long stretches of time - may have an impact on health,” said Diaz, lead investigator of the study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
The researchers also found that participants who kept most of their sitting bouts to less than 30 minutes had the lowest risk of death.
“So if you have a job or lifestyle where you have to sit for prolonged periods of time, we suggest taking a movement break every half hour. This one behaviour change could reduce your risk of death, although we do not yet know precisely how much activity is optimal,” Diaz said. The study was the largest to link objectively measured sedentary time and sedentary patterns with mortality risk, researchers said.
