Are you also one of those people who prefer sitting and don’t like to get up? Then beware, this habit of yours could be dangerous.
A recent study published in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology revealed that sitting for over 10 and a half hours a day could significantly increase the risk of heart failure and cardiovascular death, even for those who do the recommended 150 minutes of physical activity.
Shaan Khurshid, MD, MPH, cardiac electrophysiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and the co-senior author of a study, said in a statement, “Most people spend much of the day, an average of roughly 10 hours, sitting. For this reason it’s important to better understand how sitting and sedentary behavior in general may affect health, and whether these effects may be mitigated by exercise and physical activity.”
He further added, “Cardiovascular disease is a major public health problem, and we know from many studies that getting enough exercise can be a powerful method of reducing risk of future conditions. For this reason, the guidelines are clear that achieving at least 150 minutes per week of MVPA is an important goal.”
Upon analyzing the data from approximately 90,000 participants in the UK Biobank, with an average age of 62 researchers reached the conclusion that prolonged sitting more than 10.6 hours daily raises the risk of heart related problems and reducing sedentary time could help lower these risk.
“For these conditions, there appeared to be an ‘inflection point’ of risk at this 10.6-hour threshold. That means that getting as many people as possible to avoid this level of sedentary behavior may be particularly important for risk of heart failure and cardiovascular mortality,” Khurshid explained.
