Modern life is killing us and there is nothing we can do, as new study finds that sitting for many hours every day increases the risk of having a heart attack or stroke and going to the gym does not entirely counteract the negative effects of a sedentary lifestyle.
According to the American College of Cardiology, sitting is associated with increased coronary artery calcification and the amount of exercise a person gets is not helping because sitting might have a greater impact than exercise on this particular measure of heart health.
“It’s clear that exercise is important to reduce your cardiovascular risk and improve your fitness level,” said Jacquelyn Kulinski, M.D., assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin and the study’s lead author. “But this study suggests that reducing how much you sit every day may represent a more novel, companion strategy (in addition to exercise) to help reduce your cardiovascular risk.”
Many previous studies have linked excess sitting with an increased risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and early death, but this one offers a unique perspective on the effects of sedentary behavior because it links sitting with an early marker for heart disease risk. The findings show that each hour of sedentary time per day was associated with a 14 percent increase in coronary artery calcification burden. The association was independent of exercise activity and other traditional heart disease risk factors.
“I think the study offers a promising message. Reducing the amount of time you sit by even an hour or two a day could have a significant and positive impact on your future cardiovascular health,” Kulinski said.
“The lesson here is that it’s really important to try to move as much as possible in your daily life; for example, take a walk during lunch, pace while talking on the phone, take the stairs instead of the elevator and use a pedometer to track your daily steps. And if you do have a very sedentary job, don’t go home at night and sit in front of the TV for hours on end,” she concluded.
Coronary artery calcification, measured through a non-invasive CT heart scan, indicates the amount of calcium contained in plaques within the heart’s arteries. When such plaques accumulate over time, causing the arteries to narrow, it occurs the coronary artery disease.
Researchers analyzed heart scans and physical activity records of more than 2,000 adults living in Dallas and used a motion-tracking device called an accelerometer to measure how long participants were sedentary and how much they exercised. The results revealed participants sat for a little more than five hours per day on average, with a range of two to 12 hours.