Revealed…the 14 ways sitting for six hours or more a day can KILL you
IT'S no state secret that sitting for long periods of time is bad for your health - but new research suggests our love of lounging is killing us in 14 different ways.
Sitting for more than six hours a day increases your risk of early death by 19 per cent, the study found.
The American Cancer Society looked at data from 128,000 men and women who took part in a cancer prevention study.
At the start of the study they were all free of major disease but during 21 years of follow-ups nearly 49,000 had died.
The development of chronic diseases all had one thing in common - sitting for long periods of time.
Experts couldn't quite pinpoint why sitting increased your risk of disease but one thing was clear, we are spending far too much of our lives sitting at work, watching TV or playing on computers.
Lead researcher Alpa Patel and her team found sitting increased your risk of these 14 diseases:
- Cancer
- Heart disease
- Stroke
- Diabetes
- Kidney disease
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
- Lung disease
- Liver disease
- Stomach ulcers and other digestive problems
- Parkinson's disease
- Alzheimer's
- Nervous disorders
- Muscularskeletal disorders
- Suicide
"The simple message is that we should be moving more," Patel said.
"The less sitting you do, the better it is for you, breaking up an hour of sitting with 2 minutes of standing or light activity can improve cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure."
It's not clear why sitting for long periods causes disease, she said, but it's thought to be linked to other unhealthy behaviours like poor diet and excess snacking.
Sitting has previously been linked to high blood sugar, insulin-resistance and inflammation caused by obesity, all of which can lead to disease like diabetes, kidney problems and lung disease.
You risk of dying varied for each disease, from 10 per cent higher for cancer to 60 per cent higher for muscularskeletal disease, the study found.
MORE ON HEART DISEASE
Dr David Katz, director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center in Connecticut, added: "We have known for some time now that sitting for extended periods daily is injurious to health.
"Does this mean that sitting excessively increases suicide risk? That seems implausible.
"Perhaps depressed people lack the motivation to get up and go out.
"But then again, we know that routine activity is important to mental health, so some contribution of being sedentary to the severity of depression is not out of the question.
"The remedy is at hand—stand up, stretch, walk around; repeat often."
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