SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) — Sitting down may not be as deadly as previously thought, according to a new study by researchers at the Charles Perkins Center at the University of Sydney.
Previous research has linked sedentary lifestyles to heart disease, type two diabetes and cancer, with sitting branded the “new smoking”.
A new study led by associate professor Emmanuel Stamatakis reveals that inactivity alone does not lead to a higher incidence of type two diabetes.
The study is one of the first long-term studies to distinguish between what people do when they are sitting.
“The type of sitting is important to study because sitting is not done on its own, so people very often sit while doing something else at the same time. They can be sitting working, they can be sitting watching TV, they can be sitting driving, and to some extent, the health properties, the health influences of sitting depend on what else we do,” said Stamatakis.
Stamatakis worked with colleagues from the University of Victoria, the University of Exeter and the University of London to track 4,811 mostly middle aged men without diabetes, heart or circulatory problems at the start of the study over 13 years.
The study separated the participants’ sitting behavior into work and commuting, leisure time and watching television.
The researchers found there was a weak link between television-watching and an increased risk of developing diabetes, but the study’s authors said this could be attributed to other factors such as poorer mental health, snacking and exposure to unhealthy foods advertising.
The people taking part in the University of Sydney study were unusually active, said Stamatakis.
“We should not forget that the sample of our study were a group of office workers who were very physically active,” said Stamatakis. “They were walking for approximately 45 minutes per day. This is a lot of walking and it is perhaps that this high level of physical activity protected them against diabetes and this is why sitting seemed to matter less.”
The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, backs up other research that the health risks associated with sitting down for long periods can be counteracted by increased activity at other times.
According to Stamatakis, “Lifestyle has many components, it’s not all about sitting. For a person who does a lot of exercise, perhaps sitting is of secondary importance. But we should not forget that the reality out there is that only a minority of adults are physically active. The large majority of adults do very little exercise and very little physical activity in general.”
A recent study, authored by Dr. Janne Tolstrup of the University of Southern Denmark, linked sitting for more than 10 hours a day to a 35 percent higher risk of diabetes compared with sitting for less than 6 hours a day.
But there was no increased risk associated with increased sitting time when participants managed at least 150 minutes a week of moderate to vigorous physical activity, which the study team said meant that factors like obesity and lack of exercise are behind the link between sitting time and diabetes.
Research published in July 2016 found that inactivity is estimated to cause more than 5 million deaths a year – almost as many as smoking, which the World Health Organization (WHO) says kills 6 million a year.
Globally, about one in 10 adults have diabetes, according to the WHO. Most of these people have type 2 diabetes, which is associated with obesity and ageing and occurs when the body can’t make or use enough of the hormone insulin.
