Sitting Less May Be Key for Maximum Longevity

November 09 2012

By Dr. Mercola

According to recent research, if Americans cut back on the amount of time spent sitting down, it could add years to their life expectancy.

Unfortunately, most people spend a large portion of each day in a seated position. It's hard to avoid these days, as computer work predominates, and most also spend many precious hours each week commuting to and from work.

Sitting Takes a Heavy Toll on Health

The study estimates that reducing the average time you spend sitting down to less than three hours a day could increase your life expectancy by two years.¹ Reducing the time you spend watching TV to less than two hours a day could increase it by 1.4 years.

As reported by NBC News:²

"'The study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that sitting itself is deadly. While previous studies have looked at the health risks to the individual, the new study examines the risk of sitting for the whole population, said study researcher Peter Katzmarzyk, of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La. The research 'elevates sedentary behavior as an important risk factor, similar to smoking and obesity,' Katzmarzyk said.

Other studies have found our culture of sitting may be responsible for about 173,000 cases of cancer each year.

Because U.S. adults spend, on average, between 4.5 and five hours a day sitting down, a significant shift in the population's behavior would be needed to have an effect on life expectancy, Katzmarzyk said. This might be achieved through changes at the workplace, such as the use of standing desks, and by watching less TV..."

A second study, published in the October issue of the British Journal of Sports Medicine,³ which included nearly 12,000 Australian adults, concluded that each hour spent watching television after the age of 25 reduces your life expectancy by nearly 22 minutes. To put this into perspective, the authors compared it to smoking – each cigarette reduces your life expectancy by about 11 minutes. All in all, the researchers found that adults who spend an average of six hours in front of the TV will reduce their life expectancy by just under 5 years, compared to someone who does not watch TV.

Obesity Panacea⁴ made a good point in its report on this study:

"These sorts of theoretical studies obviously need to be taken with a large dollop of salt (just like the recent Australian study⁵ which estimated that every hour of TV viewing shortens your life by 25 minutes). The point is simply that there is a non-negligible impact of sitting/TV viewing on mortality, and given the extremely high prevalence of these behaviors at the population level, they can have noticeable impact on the lifespan of the population as a whole."

Inactivity is naturally associated with increased risk for poor health, which will likely impact your overall life span. A recent study published in Diabetologia,⁶ analyzed 18 studies that in total included nearly 800,000 people, and found that those who sat for the longest periods of time were twice as likely to have diabetes or heart disease, compared to those who sat the least. And, while prolonged sitting was linked to an overall greater mortality risk from any cause, the strongest link was to death due to diabetes. According to lead researcher Thomas Yates, MD:⁷

"Even for people who are otherwise active, sitting for long stretches seems to be an independent risk factor for conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and kidney disease."

How to Increase Activity Levels on the Job

While sitting down is not the only thing that can cause trouble (adopting any particular posture for long periods of time can slow down your circulatory system), sitting is one of the most pervasive postures in modern civilizations. So how can you increase your activity levels if you have a "desk job," as so many of us do these days?

One of the things I do to compensate for the time I spend sitting each day is to regularly do Foundation exercises developed by a brilliant chiropractor, Eric Goodman. These exercises are used by many professional and elite athletes, but more importantly can easily address the root cause of most low back pain, which is related to weakness and imbalance among your posterior chain of muscles. It is easily argued that these imbalances are primarily related to sitting. I have recently interviewed Dr. Goodman and he shares his comments on the featured report below.

Here are two video demonstrations: "The Founder," which helps reinforce proper movement while strengthening the entire back of your body, and "Adductor Assisted Back Extension," which will teach you how to properly extend your spine.

http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2012/11/09/sitting-less-increases-life-expectancy.aspx?e_cid=20121109_DNL_art_1

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