Sitting the new Smoking

As this no doubt relates to all of us who are "chained to the PC" I want to share the following info I picked up at a recent Cardiac Congress.

Prof Vickie Lambert from the sports medicine unit in Cape town, presented a talk titled - "Sitting the new Smoking"

In this talk she cited findings from new research which shows that sitting for long periods can cause an 'insulin resistant metabolic syndrome' regarding glucose uptake, This can be more harmful than other risk factors, such as smoking, diabetes and obesity.

It has now been found that those who sit for more than 11 hours per day, have a significant increase in risk factors for cardiovascular disease and cancer, and those who sit for more than 3 hours per day can expect a 1.8-2.5 reduction in lifespan, even WITH regular exercise!

Attempts to address this have been undertaken in Australia and include:
Reducing TV viewing to under 2 hours per day.
Removing paper bins from office worker's desks and having a 'central rubbish bin point,' forcing the worker to get up from time to time.
Stools have also been removed from recreational areas so the workers must now stand at coffee breaks.

She suggests that the 'sitter' get up and walk for 3 minutes every 30 minutes, 6 minutes every hour and for 12 minutes for every 2 hours. There are apps that help with this such as 'B-Mobile.' (I've been using my 'Tomighty' app with the Promodoro technique, to try to keep me productive, but now have another use for it!:)

Have a good day everyone and "Happy Standing!"