Get Up, Stand Up: Sitting for Too Long Doubles Diabetes Risk

Reading, studying kill.

The more time people spend sitting, the greater their risk of diabetes, cardiovascular events, and death, a new meta-analysis has shown. This is the first research to systematically quantify the strength of association between sedentary behavior--beyond just TV viewing--and health outcomes and shows a particularly consistent relationship for diabetes, say Dr Emma G Wilmot (University of Leicester, UK) and colleagues in their paper in the November 2012 issue of Diabetologia.

Wilmot says that a number of important messages have emerged from the research. "People don't think about sitting as being dangerous, and it's quite a change, having to think, 'how can I reduce my sitting?' rather than just 'how much exercise can I do?' We've traditionally been focused on making sure we meet the physical-activity guidelines of 30 minutes per day, but with that approach we've overlooked what we do with the other 23 and a half hours in the day. If you sit for the rest of the day, that is going to have an impact on health, and that's essentially what our meta-analysis shows," she told heartwire .

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