Thaindian News

London, Jan 19 (ANI): Sitting still for long periods of time and lack of “whole body muscular movement” are strongly associated with obesity heart disease, cancer and diabetes, say researchers.

And in order to beat this, the boffins say, office workers who spend most of their days glued to their seats should go for regular exercise, make regular trips to the printer, coffee machine or to chat with colleagues, reports The Independent.

Writing in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Elin Ekblom-Bak and colleagues from the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm said that sitting still should be recognised as a risk to health, independently of taking too little exercise.

Dr Ekblom-Bak said: “Everyone knows about the health benefits of regular exercise. But what we have not been alerted to before is that long periods sitting down carries an extra risk that cannot be dealt with by taking exercise. There are a growing number of studies that show this.

“One study compared two groups of sedentary office workers, one of whom had regular breaks to move around while the other remained sitting for up to eight hours a day.

“The group that had the breaks had better blood lipid levels and blood glucose and less obesity.”

Another study from Australia showed that for every extra hour women spent sitting, their risk of metabolic syndrome - a pre-cursor of diabetes and heart disease, rose by a quarter, regardless of how much exercise they took.

Dr Ekblom-Bak said: “It is important to have a five minute break from desk work every 45 minutes. Don’t email colleagues - walk across the office to give them the message. Take a coffee break or put the printer in the next room. I am a desk worker and I try to do it. It is not difficult but sometimes you get lost in your work and you forget about it.” (ANI)