Exercise ineffective in reducing the health risks’ of prolong sitting

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The American Heart Association (AHA) in a recent scientific statement remarked that sedentary behavior or life style can increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and other conditions, even among people who are physically active. This is according to a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association.

It was further revealed that sitting too much is detrimental to health, regardless of physical activity levels, say researchers.Over the years, several studies have found that any activity that revolves round sitting or lying down is harmful to the health of an individual. In fact, a number of researches have been continuously linking sedentary behavior with higher risk of obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and so on.

Prolong sitting has been identified as a leading cause of death, accounting for about 430,000 death across 54 countries according to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine published study earlier in 2016. Although, no consensus has been reached as to if regular exercise can minimize or eliminate the harmful effect of sitting for a long period of time. However, Deborah R. Young led study recently published by the Journal of Circulation found that no matter the level of exercise one engages in, prolong sitting is inimical to healthy living.

Deborah R. Young and colleagues came to these findings after following the review of the current evidence on sedentary behavior. Emphasizing the fact that Americans spend too long sitting, the review revealed that younger adults in the United States are sedentary for around 6-8 hours a day, while adults aged 60 and older spend around 8.6-9.6 hours a day sedentary.

The authors explain that sedentary behaviors normally have an energy expenditure of 1.5 metabolic equivalents (METs) or less. Slow, leisurely walking or light housework uses around 2.5 METs, while vigorous to moderate physical activity uses around 3 METs or more. According to current evidence, Young and colleagues discovered prolong sitting may increase the risk of impaired insulin sensitivity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even loss of life.

Unfortunately, the study remarked that mild to intensive physical activity played no significant role in reducing the fatal effect of prolong sitting, recommending that prolonged sitting is injurious to health, regardless of how much one exercises. Young opines that, at the moment, they could not define what constitute prolong sitting; however, their advice is to reduce the amount of time spent sitting and increase the amount of time spent active. They conclude that there is a lot of research that must be done by them.

In line with the AHA’s physical activity guidelines, the authors recommend engaging in around 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity daily; noting that exercising in smaller amounts each day is more beneficial than trying to fit in the same amount of exercise in fewer days.