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Americans might live a little longer if they cut back on the amount of time they spend sitting down, a new study says.
Reducing the daily average time that people spend sitting to less than three hours would increase the U.S. life expectancy by two years, the study found. And reducing the time spent watching TV to less than 2 hours daily would increase life expectancy by 1.4 years.
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, he said.
Katzmarzyk and colleagues analyzed information from five earlier studies involving more than 167,000 adults that looked at the link between sitting and risk of dying from any cause over the next four to 14 years. The researchers also collected information from U.S. surveys conducted during 2005-2006 and 2009-2010, to calculate the amount of time Americans spent watching TV and sitting down daily.
About 27 percent of deaths in the studies could be attributed to sitting, and 19 percent to television viewing, the researchers said.
The study adds to the evidence suggesting that "in addition to being concerned about physical activity behaviors, we need to be concerned also about sedentary behaviors," said Mark Tremblay, a director of research at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, who was not involved in the study.
Because so many people sit for prolonged periods, the effect on the overall population is substantial, Tremblay said.
The researchers noted their study assumed a cause-effect link between sedentary behavior and risk of dying, which further research should validate, they said. In addition, the study relied on participants' own reports of sitting and TV watching time, which may not be entirely accurate.
The study is published online Monday in the journal BMJ Open.
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2 years of quality or 2 years of drooling down your chest? Maybe, even 2 years of excruciating pain.
I guess that all depends on the amount of drugs(this includes cigarettes and alcohol), fast-food one has consumed over their lifetime. However, I plan on checking out early when QoL goes down or whatever it is starts to constantly hurt.
The article title is in error, it should read research indicates "Exercising daily adds years to your life."
Oh, wait. That sounds like what Jack Lalanne was saying since the 1940's.
If you are an average healthy human to start with and want to try to maintain that state...you can sit all you want, lie down all you want, and for the most part eat what you want provided you exercise.
Actually, Glen, research is showing that sitting itself is a major risk factor, and that even rigorous exercise can't entirely make up for it. I don't remember the details, but read a large study that showed that people who work non-sitting jobs but also don't exercise had lower mortality than people with sitting jobs but who exercised regularly. The physiological explanation of it was pretty interesting.
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What a ridiculous suggestion. Unless you have a job that requires you to be in motion most of the day - like an aerobics instructor, it is impossible to do. I work in an office. I serve customers. I think it would be distracting to them and difficult for me to stand up and talk and type on the @#$% computer.
Seriously - would that 3 hours be used sleeping. I believe the last study said 8 hours of sleep make one live longer.
Quit putting out this crap.
So this is simply another way of saying that exercising is good for you, eating too much, and smoking is bad for you. Really hope that they didn't spend any money on this research because I'm pretty sure EVERYONE already knows this.
Many old people sit around all the time, and many of them live to ripe old ages. So instead of 85-57, the average life expectancy, they would live to 87-89?
Life is a terminal condition. No one gets off the planet alive.
Either live the way you want and don't worry about the inevitable or spend your life fretting about making it longer and never enjoy it.
What about all the time we spend sitting in our cars, commuting to and from work and running errands?
Is it even possible to spend less than 2 hours a day sitting down?
Some of you should learn to read. This article has nothing to do with exercise. This research is about the act of sitting. Even if you exercise every day, spending too much of your time sitting down will still raise your risk of having numerous health problems. If you have a job where you must sit for long periods of time, other research has shown that it helps to stand up or walk around the room at least once an hour.
I read it Matt. I read the previous articles on sitting as well. Basically what it says is if you remain immobile in a certain position for long periods without doing basic exercise it is unhealthy
I guess if I do it right and I get all that they promise, I can live to be 200 years old. Not a pretty picture... and VERY boring to think about.
I am getting ready for them to say that living in a House, any house, is unhealthy and they will outlaw living indoors.
why is TV mentioned twice when working for a living isn't mentioned at all?
Agreed. I watch very little TV, so that's not an issue. But I'm an accountant, for Pete's sake - my entire job (you know, the thing that provides the money that lets me pay for housing, food, medical care, etc.) revolves around the computer. Which means sitting... unless I can get the partners to agree to converting my office to SRO, and then explaining that to the clients who come in for meetings.
Yes! And what about all the time we are spending online? Yikes...I'm a goner... ;)
I work at a desk as millions do. My average sit time off and on all day is about 5-6 hours. I have to sit to do my job, now what the **** . I think these people that do these stupid studies and are sitting on their butts doing them need to get of their butts and get a real job.
So I can stand around all day not watching TV just to add 2 yrs (or 1.4 yrs, or is that cumulative?) to my now somewhat boring and uncomfortable life?
If you sit in a balance ball chair, you'll exercise your core muscles as you sit.
If I knew then what I know now...
My plaque is reversing less than a year after my quadruple bypass surgery.
I have outlined some of the pitfalls of filling our guts with guts; how the sun will shine brighter and the water will taste better if we eat lots of plants. I have not shared results.
I am due for my next checkup at the Cardiologist in the next month. This is from my last visit in November.
05/03/reversing-plaque-maybe-its-the-aluminium-foil-hat-i-made/
Anyone can pick apart how long humans have been eating meat or how or brains would be the size of peas without animal protein. There are thousands of studies and experts that will refute any effort that promotes focusing your diet on grains, vegetables & fruits.
I take 10mg of Crestor a day. Maybe that is the cause of the Plaque revers...al? Maybe it is the baby aspirin? Maybe it is the 30 mile run I ran on Sunday?
I say: try it. Try eating nothing but Plants & Grains for a week. Two weeks. One month. Don’t tell anyone, do it for yourself.
There is no downside… only upside.
Ian
Eat some meat. Perhaps you can type your thoughts in a logical, understandable order.
Since I've been in a wheelchair for 35+ years, I guess I should be dead by now. Just call me Rasputin!
its situations like the one Rebus is in, that make you realize this study about sitting down is.....
BOGUS
next.
Yeah right, all the people I know, or heard of, that never took time out and were always on the move...DIED young. Most of heart attacks. It's GENES people, you can modify behavior, but not the genes...
So, I guess working @ a desk job on a computer for @ least 6hrs a day means I am screwed? I stand up and stretch every-so-often, get up to use the restroom about 4 times a day, and walk around for a few minutes when I get a break or on lunch, but I guess that isn't enough. Eh, it's kewl though. I am sure the last few years of that extended life will be shat in my adult diaper, drooling, can't feed myself and taking a dozen medications 6 times a day just to stay alive. Ah, bliss...
It's why my work buddy smokes. Allowed smoking breaks means he gets even more time up and moving around. More excercise, slightly healthier currently, and with shortened life expectancy from the smoking, less time spent drooling.
I think I'll forgo those two years, thank you.
i will be flying from London to Dallas tomorrow, that's almost 9 hours of sitting...they need to start putting pedals on everywhere you have to sit, that's also includes the John.
Articles like this are such blatant BS. You can avoid all the sitting you want and still die young. There is no way to 'add years' to your life unless you already know for sure exactly how long you're going to live. People who exercise daily and eat a 'perfect' diet still die from all kinds of causes. Atheletes get cancer and people who smoke cigars and don't exercise can still live into their 90s. Maybe people all over the world would 'live longer' if the money spent on these insipid 'studies' went to real health research instead.
So if I stand up and read does that count?
So if I sit less, I will add another 1 or 2 years to my life. LOL. I like sitting down. I sit all day at work and most of the time at home. But when I am not sitting, I am jogging, doing push-ups and working on my acreage. It's called balance. Of course if you sit all day and do nothing else, you'll lose more than 2 years, maybe 20.
I work in the computer industry.
I sit ~12 hrs/day.
I'm dead already.
How's the afterlife then? I'm "dying" to know.
My father sat down his WHOLE LIFE . . I never saw him on his feet except for a few hours on Saturdays.
He is almost 87 now, still sitting & watching TV constantly, and yes, drooling.
Could it be that some people spend so much time sitting because they don't feel well to start with? It's that cause and effect thing again.
What if you watch your TV standing up ?
Everyone dies whats the big deal? If you have quality of life it's OK but if your unable to do anything I would rather not suffer.
It seems to me that the longest-lived people don't do anything but sit and lie down.
This is essentially a correlational study that does not imply causation. Subsequently, it is potentially confounded by other variables. Most likely, something like health behaviors. For example, people who do not regularly exercise are more likely to be sedentary regardless of their jobs and people who do not regularly exercises are also more likely to die younger. Thus, they are not showing the relationship between an antecedent and a consequent - they are simply showing the relationship between two consequents.
Let me see if I've got this right. Each day has 24 hours. We're supposed to sleep no more than 8 hours a day, leaving a balance of 16 hours. So, they're saying we're supposed to be standing at least 13 hours a day? Gmafb. There's no way that I, being disabled, could even come close to that, let alone someone who is in much better shape health-wise than me. This "study" is bogus.
I guess they'll start making chest high desks, hmm? Which begs the question, if sitting is unhealthy who will compensate the millions of office workers who sit at work hours on end? I guess their employers should give them limitless benefits.
Also, eating, breathing and walking can lead to death.
It doesn't matter what you do. No one is getting off this planet alive. Life is a terminal condition.
2 years? Hardly worth it. I'll sit thank you.
Wow, what a bunch of grumps!
Since being stuck in front of a computer the past seven years, or in the car, I felt my health deteriorate, despite swimming 2 miles a day.
When research came out showing that sitting all day no matter how many miles swum or run, overrides those benefits, that was enough for me. For the past several months I've been walking while I work. So have others. Check out Office Walkers...
I'm energized and my efficiency has improved. I've dropped weight, too, though that was only a bonus not a goal. I do things like walking and working in the hope that the quality of my life in my old age will be good, although I know that there are no guarantees. When my cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic told me that I'd live longer if I cut down on eating animals, I didn't ask him to give me reams of data or question his intelligence or motivations...I took his advice with the understanding that I still may die sooner than I'd like from a heart issue.
By limiting my sedentary lifestyle and cutting back on animal products for food, my hypertension decreased, my cholesterol plummeted and I remain in the top 1 percent of cardio fitness for my age group - all without the use of drugs or surgery. That's enough for me.