If your New Year's resolutions to get up off the couch and get moving are already starting to flag, here's some incentive: Two new studies say sitting too much can be bad for your health. In one, researchers followed more than 4,500 Scottish people over age 35 for an average of 4 years. Those who spent at least 4 hours a day sitting in front of the computer or TV were more than twice as likely to suffer a cardiovascular event and 52% more likely to die than those with less than 2 hours of screen time. A second study, rather than relying on self-reported data, actually used accelerometers on participants' hips to record active versus sedentary time. Among 4,757 adults, average age 46.5, longer sedentary time was associated with less-healthy measures of HDL cholesterol, insulin, insulin resistance, fasting triglycerides and C-reactive protein (a marker of inflammation linked to heart disease), as well as greater waist circumference. What can you do if your job, say, demands extended sitting time? Researchers found that periodically getting up and moving around for as little as a minute was linked to improvements in C-reactive protein scores and waist circumference. - Journal of the American College of Cardiology and European Heart Journal
Courtesy of Tufts Health and Nutrition Newsletter
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