Written By: Longjam Dineshwori | Updated : June 16, 2022 2:28 PM IST
Prolonged sitting is hazardous to your health. If you're sitting for six to eight hours a day, you have a high risk for developing heart disease, and early death.
An international study, involving more than 100,000 people from 21 countries, found longer sitting time associated with increased risk of early death and cardiovascular disease. Participants who sat for six to eight hours a day had a 12-13 per cent increased risk for early death and heart disease while the risk went up to 20 per cent for those sitting for more than eight hours daily, according to the study published in the journal Jama Cardiology.
Therefore, Scott Lear, health sciences professor at Simon Fraser University, advises people to "minimize how much you sit."
"If you must sit, getting in more exercise during other times of the day will offset that risk," he added, as quoted by Science Daily. Fraser co-led the study with Wei Li of Beijing's Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.
In the study, participants who sat the most but were also the most active had a substantially lower risk of early death and heart disease (about 17 per cent) compared to those who sat the most and were the least active (50 per cent).
If you're sitting for more than four hours a day, replacing a half hour of sitting with exercise can reduce the risk by two per cent, Lear noted.
Additionally, the study found that a combination of sitting and inactivity accounted for 8.8 per cent of all deaths, which is close to the contribution of smoking (10.6 per cent).
How to fix the problem? "Scheduling time to get out of that chair is a great start," Lear stated.
Sciatica is a common complaint among working professionals, who spend long hours sitting in front of a computer. It occurs due to inflammation or compression of the sciatic nerve. The pain can manifest as a dull ache or tingling along the back and through the legs to your toes.
Sitting for too long can also cause swelling of the legs. Swollen feet, also called dependent edema, occurs when extra fluid gets trapped in your body's tissues. When you sit with your legs hanging down for a long time, gravity pulls the fluid down into your legs and feet, and causes swelling.
Spending too much time sitting, more than 10 hours, is associated with increased risk of heart attack.
A 2016 study published in the Journal of American College of Cardiology, showed that increased sedentary time is associated with higher likelihood of coronary artery calcification, which in turn increases the risk of heart attack.
