Take A Stand: The Dangers Of Prolonged Sitting

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Evidence shows that prolonged sitting is devastating your health. In his book, Get Up! Why Your Chair Is Killing You and What You Can Do About It, Dr. James Levine, co-director of the Mayo Clinic and the Arizona State University Obesity Initiative, notes there are about 10,000 publications showing that sitting is harmful to your health.

Prolonged sitting actively promotes dozens of chronic diseases, including obesity and Type 2 diabetes, even if you’re very fit and exercise regularly. It’s also an independent risk factor for premature death, even if you lead an otherwise healthy lifestyle. In fact, chronic sitting has a mortality rate similar to smoking.¹

Studies looking at life in agriculture environments show that people in agrarian villages sit for about three hours a day. Meanwhile, the average American office worker can sit for 13 to 15 hours a day, and research shows that vigorous exercise cannot counteract the adverse effects of this prolonged sitting.

Interestingly, evidence of the biological effects associated with lack of movement go further back than you might think — straight into the human fossil records, as reported by NPR in 2014.

According to biological anthropologists at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the fossil record suggests that when early man traded their nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles for a more settled one, it resulted in a less dense bone structure.

Prolonged Sitting Takes A Toll Even If You Exercise

The health effects go far beyond reductions in bone density, however. I for one am absolutely convinced that excessive sitting is a foundational contributor to most chronic health problems and premature death, and research supports this notion. For example, as noted in a 2010 paper in Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews:²

“Even when adults meet physical activity guidelines, sitting for prolonged periods can compromise metabolic health. Television (TV) time and objective measurement studies show deleterious associations, and breaking up sedentary time is beneficial. Sitting time, TV time, and time sitting in automobiles increase premature mortality risk …

Importantly, adults can meet public health guidelines on physical activity, but if they sit for prolonged periods, their metabolic health is compromised … [T]here is … the potential for high sedentary time and physical activity to coexist …

An example would be an office worker who jogs or bikes to and from work, but who then sits all day at a desk and spends several hours watching TV in the evening.”

In short, while sitting is clearly a sedentary behavior, standing is not. The authors cite several studies³ showing that prolonged sitting promotes the very ailments that modern society struggles with, while standing protects against them.

For example, the more time you spend watching TV, the greater your risk of abnormal glucose metabolism and metabolic syndrome. Even if you get at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise each week, there’s a dose-response association of TV time with waist circumference, systolic blood pressure and glucose levels — a phenomenon referred to as “active couch potato syndrome.”

Exercise Cannot Undo The Damage Of Prolonged Sitting

The take-home message here is that even daily exercise cannot undo the harm done by sitting for hours on end. The key is to stand up and keep your body in mild motion as much as possible throughout each day. Only then will regular exercise work synergistically to improve your health.

Case in point: A study⁴ published in 2015 found that, compared to those who exercised often and engaged in few sedentary behaviors, those who rarely exercised and spent many hours sitting had an almost eightfold increased risk of dying prematurely.

So, it’s the combination of bouts of exercise and chronic bodily motion (such as shifting posture while standing) that brings about the greatest health benefits.

Another systematic review⁵ that looked at 47 studies of sedentary behavior confirmed that the time a person spends sitting each day indeed produces detrimental effects that outweigh the benefits reaped from exercise.

Sitting was found to increase your risk of death from virtually all health problems, from Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease to cancer and all-cause mortality. For example, sitting for more than eight hours a day was associated with a 91% increased risk of Type 2 diabetes and 22% higher risk of death from any cause.

To counteract the ill effects of prolonged sitting, researchers suggest you:

• Keep track of how much you’re sitting each day and make an effort to reduce it, little by little, each week
• Use a standing desk at work
• When watching TV, stand up and/or walk around during commercial breaks

Why Sitting Causes So Much Harm

As indicated in the paper cited above, the reason why prolonged sitting impairs health and promotes disease has to do with the molecular cascades that occur upon standing.

As further explained in the book, Get Up! within 90 seconds of rising from sitting to standing, the muscular and cellular systems that process blood sugar, triglycerides, and cholesterol — which are mediated by insulin — are activated.

All of these molecular effects are activated simply by carrying your bodyweight upon your legs. These cellular mechanisms are also responsible for pushing fuels into your cells and, if done regularly, will radically decrease your risk of diabetes and obesity.

In short, at the molecular level, the human body was designed to be active and on the move all day long. Stop moving for extended periods of time, and it’s like telling your body it’s time to shut down and prepare for death.

While we clearly need to rest from time to time, that rest is supposed to break up activity, not the other way around. Sitting is not supposed to be a way of life. Sitting in a chair is a very unnatural posture that is bad not only for your back but also your metabolism.

Fortunately, the remedy is simple: Avoid sitting and get more movement into your life. If you have an office job, consider getting a stand-up desk. As a general starting guideline, Levine recommends standing for at least 10 minutes each hour. If you’ve been sitting down for a full hour, you’ve sat too long. I believe 10 minutes is the absolute minimum and, ideally, you’d want to limit sitting to three hours or less.

For A Healthier Life, Give Up Your Chair

The evidence is overwhelming at this point that prolonged sitting will reduce your lifespan by promoting chronic disease. At bare minimum, avoid sitting for more than 50 minutes out of every hour. Ideally, you’d want to limit sitting as much as possible. As mentioned earlier, people who live in agrarian communities sit an average of just three hours a day, which would be an admirable goal.

I also recommend challenging yourself to walk as much as possible each day. If you have to choose between going to the gym to work out and simply walking more, walking may be the better choice. That said, if you want to really reap maximum benefits, add in 75 minutes of high-intensity exercise and 40 minutes of strength training per week as well.

Sources and References

• ¹ Diabetologia November 2012;55(11):2895-905
• ² Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews July 2010; 38(3): 105-113
• ^3, 11 Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews July 2010; 38(3): 105-113, Metabolic Health Consequences of Too Much Sitting section
• ⁴ PLoS One 2015;10(3): e0119591
• ^5,  Annals of Internal Medicine 2015;162(2):123-132

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