Sitting down all day is killing you

Get off your butt and make some tea if you want to live

By Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor, 27th March 2012

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A study of more than 220,000 people aged 45 or more has come to a startling conclusion: sitting down all day is killing you.

The 45 and Up study compared mortality rates among those who sit for many hours a day and those who spend less time perched on their posterior.

The study used “... questionnaire data from 222 497 individuals 45 years or older from the 45 and Up Study to mortality data from the New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages (Australia) from February 1, 2006, through December 31, 2010.”

The news is bad if you spend more than 11 hours a day sitting: your chance of leaving this plane of existence in the next three years is 40% higher than those who spend less time on their behinds. Even those who sit for just eight hours a day have a 15% “better” chance of death.

The dangers of sitting are not only related to a sedentary lifestyle and obesity. The study also hints at more profound physiological issues created by sitting for many hours a day, as doing so means the body is deprived of many internal triggers that spark beneficial actions in the body. Even standing a few more times a day, the research says, can therefore improve health. Hence our plea for tea in the subheading.

"Shorter sitting times and sufficient physical activity are independently protective against all-cause mortality not just for healthy individuals but also for those with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, overweight, or obesity," the study's authors wrote in Archives of Internal Medicine, where the results of the study were published this week.

If you're sitting while reading this, what are you waiting for? ®

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