Sitting more than eight hours a day can increase the risk of heart disease and early death by 20 per cent, according to a new study co-authored by a B.C. professor.
Research carried out by Simon Fraser University's Scott Lear and Wei Li of Beijing’s Chinese Academy of Medical Science tracked 100,000 people in 21 countries over 11 years"Sitting is bad for us, and that's nothing new," Lear told CTV News, explaining they were trying to measure, in part, whether increased physical activity could mitigate the ill effects.
He also says the study found that for those sitting more than four hours a day, replacing a half-hour of sitting with exercise reduced the risk by two per cent. For those who sat more than eight hours per day, being active for an hour was enough to reduce risk to those who sat only four hours a day but were not active.
"That combination of physical inactivity and high sitting wasn't quite at the same level but it was close to smoking. That's an important message also to get out for health professionals and clinicians. Because working with a patient to increase their activity, or get them to break up their sitting is a pretty low-cost intervention that can have substantial benefits."
This is why, Lear says, it's particularly important not to remain sedentary in the hours immediately following a meal. It's also why other studies have found that TV-watching is one of the worst kinds of sitting, because it's so often paired with snacking.
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