Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Study: Sitting for long periods doesn’t make death more imminent

You've read the warnings: "Sitting will kill you." And many of you have sought out standing desks, fearful that a chair will only hasten the end of your mortal existence.
Well, take a deep breath, relax and add this to the mix of research out there on the pros and cons of standing at work: a study published Tuesday in the International Journal of Epidemiology found that sitting is not associated with an increased risk of dying.
Researchers tracked 16 years' worth of health data from 5,132 people in the Whitehall II study cohort. Participants reported their total time sitting and how long they sat during four different situations: at work, watching television, leisure time and non-television leisure time. Researchers also tracked time spent walking daily and on physical activity.
After controlling for a number of factors, including diet and general health, researchers found the overall mortality risk for these participants wasn't influenced by how long they sat or by the kind of sitting. And the researchers cautioned that too much emphasis on not sitting shouldn't take the place of promoting physical activity.
"Our study overturns current thinking on the health risks of sitting and indicates that the problem lies in the absence of movement rather than the time spent sitting itself," study author Melvyn Hillsdon of the University of Exeter said in a statement. "Any stationary posture where energy expenditure is low may be detrimental to health, be it sitting or standing." (read more)

8 comments:

Methadras said...

People are fools. In Japan, there is death by overwork called Karōshi. Sitting isn't the problem. Junk science quacks telling you this shit is the problem.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I like to know my tax dollars are being used to pay big nanny state bizniss (the same bizniss that takes our money and gives to democrats all while democrats pretend to hate the demo-biz), 92,000,000 for new furniture at the EPA, and all the stupid waste of time studies that lead the stupid around by their nose rings.

sit and die, stand and die, don't eat this, do eat that, no salt, yes to salt, no coffee, drink lots of coffee. Studies!

die Katie Couric Die!

ricpic said...

Can I finally go back to slathering butter on my bread? I love butter. Bad cholesterol. How could something that good be bad?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I want a study that tells us how many hacks does it take to run the media and the Clinton global Fund.

Chip Ahoy said...

Why even have toast without butter? Honestly.

Popcorn without butter. Gah.

The alarm goes off by the toaster around here. Alarm and toaster are antithetic. And when the alarm is hazard for toast then salt goes on the butter slathered on the toast because the butter is saltless.

It's a control thing, always accounting for salt in the butter. Plus, butter is used as preservative commercially, it makes handling and storing easier and less demanding. Unsalted is more difficult to keep fresh so it's generally handled more carefully in large amounts before arriving at stores. I heard it on the teevee. From a woman.

This is another chief annoyance. It's my problem, I realize that, but I categorize the maddening tendency liberal. The bandwagon jumping I find obnoxious. The piggy-backing faux intelligence offered, insisted actually, the signaling of intellectual supremacy by mere bandwagon hopping, relying on the studies done by others. Being aware of such studies, and living by them. Not hopping ON the bandwagon, hopping IN FRONT of the bandwagon, presuming to pull it now that it's received wisdom vetted through the most reliable channels.

Not entirely liberal, that's a faulted categorization. My own dad did the same thing and with a vengeance. He read a lot. He read the paper every day and never knew what was happening in the world worth knowing. He simultaneously devoured all health related studies, fresh and fading while engaging in obviously self-destructive behavior.

Obvious to himself and to everyone.

Cholesterol found everywhere in one's diet suddenly becomes such a defining problem for himself and for everyone within earshot, while having the same eggs over easy with bacon and toast breakfast for fifty years isn't.

Quarts of coffee each day followed by pints of alcohol each day and smoking packs of cigarettes each day while pontificating on fried foods, high fat content foods, salt in foods, sugar in foods, and with a household stocked completely full with commercially prepared food. A positive aversion to simple fresh food.

Let's be happy instead.

Speaking of fresh, through several génoise experiments, the batter of mostly raw egg whipped to extreme length with sugar then fortified with browned butter, salt and raw flour tastes heavenly while the cooked version is worse, however it's cooked, baked, steamed, fried, microwaved. You'd think raw eggs and flour would be gross, but it actually tastes beautiful while the cooked batter is all the eh.

Christy said...

Surely these studies were replicated?

deborah said...

ricpic, the bread is the problem, for which see Wheat Belly. Basically Atkins revisited. When I gave up wheat and sugar my GERD went away and my appetite plummeted. The wheat and sugar cause constant spikes of insulin, hunger is sated, insulin drops hunger reoccurs, endless cycle.

Methadras said...

deborah said...

ricpic, the bread is the problem, for which see Wheat Belly. Basically Atkins revisited. When I gave up wheat and sugar my GERD went away and my appetite plummeted. The wheat and sugar cause constant spikes of insulin, hunger is sated, insulin drops hunger reoccurs, endless cycle.


You realize you are engaged in the Atkins Diet, right? A diet that has been shown in the long run to be fairly unhealthy. While you are seeing short term gains in the beginning of your dieting process, you will see long term ill effects throughout if you maintain this diet. Statistically speaking. You might be an outlier. People who have fallen on the gluten free/gluten intolerant side of dieting have been suckered into believing that inflammation (like 'wheat belly') are the root of all disease. They aren't. In fact, what isn't being talked about is the chronic inflammation that chronic meat based diets produce like Atkins. If you don't mix in rich green leafy produce or vegetables, your body is missing out on important nutrients that you won't get from meats or meat proteins.