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A highly-cited study out last year in the Journal of Epidemiology on 7,000 office workers found that, “Occupations involving predominantly standing were associated with an approximately 2-fold risk of heart disease compared with occupations involving predominantly sitting.”
[1]
it’s probably best if workers rely on occasional walks rather than standing desks.
[1]
If you spend most of your workday standing, you may be at a greater risk of heart disease compared to spending most of your workday sitting. This might mean that “combinations of sitting and standing are likely to have beneficial cardiovascular health benefits.” [1]
Interestingly, jobs that combine standing, sitting and walking seem to be more risky for women that for men: “While occupations that involved combinations of sitting, standing, and walking were associated with a decreased risk of heart disease among men, they were associated with an increased risk of heart disease among women.” [1]
References
Even if you follow standard recommendations for physical activity with the aim of “reducing risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers”, it seems that, according to [1], having long periods of inactivity is distinctly “related to risk of chronic disease independent of physical activity”.
Interestingly, taking more frequent breaks from sitting seems to be beneficially associated with metabolic risk variables. Again from [1]: “independent of total sedentary time, moderate-to-vigorous intensity time, and mean intensity of the breaks, more interruptions in sedentary time were beneficially associated with metabolic risk variables, particularly adiposity measures, triglycerides, and 2-h plasma glucose.”
It appears that “it is not only the amount of sedentary time that is important, but also the manner in which it is accumulated.”
Links
Office workers tend to sit. A lot.
Spending too much time sitting can be detrimental to our health. There is “significant evidence on the adverse cardio-metabolic health consequences of sitting” [1]. Additionally, “high levels of TV time were significantly associated with increased all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality” [1].
Interestingly, daily exercise alone does not seem to offset the adverse effects of prolonged sitting. “Even if daily exercise recommendations are met, metabolic health might be compromised if sitting occurs without regular breaks”. [2].
The one most important thing you can do, is to take breaks from sedentary time. According to [2], “breaks in sedentary time (as distinct from the overall volume of time spent being sedentary) were shown to have beneficial associations with metabolic biomarkers”.
During your work day, you should get up and move briefly regularly. Having a higher number of breaks in sedentary time was “beneficially associated with waist circumference, body mass index, triglycerides, and 2-h plasma glucose” [1].
So what is a good sitting/standing ratio? “Wellness perception varies across sit:stand ratios, typically greatest near 24:6.” [3]. This ratio ties up nicely with the Pomodoro technique [3]:
References
Among the office workers surveyed in [1], there might be a possible association of Chronic Lower Back Pain and sitting too still. Regular small movements might aid the prevention of LBP.
Continue reading “Sitting too still and chronic LBP”