Table of contents:
- Sitting too long can increase the risk of death
- Why is sitting too long detrimental to health?
- 1. Too much sitting can stress the spine
- 2. Deep vein clotting (DVT)
- 3. Increase the risk of serious disease
- 4. Increase the risk of death
Do you often do activities in front of the computer all day long, or are you engrossed in watching television with hours of sitting time? If so, from now on you have to change the habit of prolonged sitting if you don't want to catch a dangerous disease. What are the bad effects of sitting too long?
Sitting too long can increase the risk of death
Nearly four percent (about 433,000 per year) of deaths in the world are actually caused by the habit of people who spend more than three hours sitting without moving.
Various studies in the last ten years also shed light on the health effects of sitting too long with or without exercising.
The new study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, estimated that the effects of sitting too long in citizens of 54 countries estimated death using data from 2002 to 2011.
Why is sitting too long detrimental to health?
1. Too much sitting can stress the spine
As much as 30 percent of the additional weight will be felt by your spine when sitting rather than standing.
Michael Lanning backbone therapist from Gonstead Clinics United States, says that sitting in a chair is a less natural form when someone wants to rest. Basically, the human body is not designed to sit on a chair, but is designed for squatting.
Asian and African people still use squatting as a form of relaxation when they feel tired. Some people in Asia prefer to squat while waiting for the train or bus they are going to ride. Uniquely, this squatting position actually prevents stress on the spine.
That is, when a person spends more time sitting in a chair, the body will adapt to habits that are not in accordance with the body's geometry, and of course this can lead to health problems such as circulatory disorders (cardiovascular disease), decreased muscle strength, muscle shrinkage, easy injury to cancer.
2. Deep vein clotting (DVT)
The thing that is most aware of from the impact of this sedentary or inactive lifestyle is the increased possibility of experiencing the risk of deep vein clotting (Deep Vein Thrombosis/ DVT) up to two times.
Professor Richard Beasley from Wellington Hospital in New Zealand stated that the threat of danger will come if you work eight hours each day just fussing around the table, or spend three consecutive hours just sitting around operating a laptop.
DVT cases usually occur in people on long-haul flights that take hours and require sitting too long. Blood clots occur in the veins and usually in the calves. If these clots are not thawed with blood thinners, they will usually burst and travel to the lungs and lead to deadly pulmonary embolism.
Beasley recommends office workers to do routine muscle stretching to maintain smooth blood flow. A study in Italy also indicated stretching and relaxation reduced the incidence of headaches in employees by up to 40 percent.
3. Increase the risk of serious disease
The results of a study conducted by the University of Leicester in England which was published in the journal Diabetologia indicate that sitting too long can increase the risk of a number of serious diseases, such as heart attack, diabetes, and even premature death.
Heart disease and diabetes are likely to be suffered by people who often sit for more than 8 hours each day. Even if you have gotten used to actively exercising for at least 30 minutes every day, but then you are still sitting for hours a day, your risk of contracting these diseases is still high.
For the average adult, standing can burn more calories and cause more muscle contraction than sitting. One study reported the mean thigh muscle activity while standing was 2.5 times higher than when sitting.
4. Increase the risk of death
The journal Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise explains the results of research that people who have the habit of sitting for 23 hours a week are a strong reason someone has heart disease.
Clearly, the results of the study stated that those who had the habit of sitting too long (more than 23 hours a week) had a 63% higher risk of death compared to those who sat less than 11 hours per week. This important study was conducted on about 17,000 people in Canada.
