“Move more and sit less.” You can learn more about this diet from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Condensed Advice on Improving Your Health and Reducing Your Risk of Chronic Disease. Current research has linked sedentary behavior to health problems in both children and adults, from obesity and poor sleep to cancer and type 2 diabetes. But a new study in Boston suggests that exercise may not be enough to reverse cardiovascular damage from too much sitting.
A team of researchers at the Mass General Brigham Health Care System showed that an excessively sedentary lifestyle — spending most of your waking hours sitting, lying down, or lying down — is associated with an increased risk of heart disease. That means heart failure and death. However, meeting exercise guidelines alone may not reduce these odds. Their results were published on November 15. Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
“Many of us spend most of our waking days sitting, and while there is a lot of research supporting the importance of physical activity, we have little but a vague awareness of the potential consequences of sitting too much. There was relatively little knowledge that it could be harmful.” Dr. Ezeimamaka Ajofu, a cardiology fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and lead author of the study, said in a news release about the research.
“The risk of sitting remains even among people who were physically active, which is important because many of us sit a lot and think that if we get out at the end of the day and do some exercise, we will However, we found it more complicated than that.
Ajofo and his colleagues used the UK Biobank health database to track the daily activities of nearly 90,000 people over the course of a week. 56% of study participants were women, with a mean age of 62 years. The researchers documented their time spent sleeping, sitting, doing light activity, and doing moderate-to-vigorous activity. They divided them into four groups, based on inactivity:
- More than 10.6 sedentary hours per day
- 9.4–10.6 sedentary hours/day
- 8.2–9.4 sedentary hours/day
- Less than 8.2 sedentary hours per day
Participants who spent the least amount of time sitting not only spent the most time being active, but also got the most sleep, while those who spent the most time sitting got the least amount of sleep and were the least sleepy. Stay active.
Sitting for 10+ hours a day is dangerous for heart health.
The researchers assessed the participants’ health after an average of eight years after their physical activity was recorded, focusing on those who had developed these heart conditions:
- Irregular and irregular contraction of the heart muscle
- Cardiovascular death (death)
- Heart failure
- Myocardial infarction (heart attack)
Sedentary behavior is associated with an increased risk of all of the above diseases. What’s more, people in the most inactive group, those who logged more than 10.6 hours of sitting a day, had a 40% to 60% higher risk of heart failure and cardiovascular death than those in the 8.2 to 9.4 hour group. was
“Our data support the idea that it’s always better to sit less and move more to reduce the risk of heart disease, and that avoiding more sitting is particularly important for reducing the risk of heart failure and cardiovascular death. is important to reduce,” co-senior author Dr. Sean Khurshid, a cardiac electrophysiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, said in the news release.
The latest physical activity guidelines for Americans recommend that adults get at least 75 to 100 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity or 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity per week, plus two days of muscle Do strengthening exercises. But even study participants who received the aerobic recommendations were not immune to the harms of a sedentary lifestyle. The researchers noted that exercise can largely reduce the risks of heart attack and atrial fibrillation, but only partially reduce the risks of death and heart failure.
Limitations of the study include the relatively short follow-up period. One week may not have accurately captured participants’ long-term physical activity habits. In addition, it is possible for wrist-worn activity trackers to misclassify standing time as sitting time, the authors wrote. He plans to expand his research to study how long-term sedentary behavior is linked to other diseases.
“Exercise is important, but avoiding excessive sitting appears to be especially important,” co-senior author Dr. Patrick Eleanor, a cardiologist and co-director of the Corrigan-Minehan Heart Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, said in a news release. I said. “We hope this work can empower patients and providers by offering another way to leverage movement behaviors to improve cardiovascular health.”
You don’t have to join a gym or stand all day to live a less sedentary lifestyle. The American Heart Association recommends these tips for building more motivation into your day:
- Set the timer. Avoid sitting for long periods of time and set a reminder to move around for five minutes every hour or 10 minutes every two hours.
- Be creative at home. Find more ways to get up and off the couch by going for a walk or doing some push-ups between episodes of a TV show. Active tasks such as vacuuming and cleaning after dinner count.
- Don’t wait. Make it a habit to exercise right after work or school. Check out these videos you can do at home!
- Find your favorite forms of exercise. Experiment with workouts that fit your personality and schedule. You’ll be more likely to stick with it.
- Move more. while working. Make it a habit to stand whenever you make or answer phone calls or add stretch breaks between tasks.
For more information on controlling obsessive behavior:
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