Sitting Can be Deady

Health experts are sounding the alarm bells and warning that sitting can be deadly. Long periods of sitting, even if you exercise regularly, can be detrimental to your health. The overall number of hours spent sitting is more important that what you're doing when the sitting takes place – at work, school, in a car or in front of the television.

Now the research is really preliminary, but several studies suggest that people that spend most of their days sitting are likely to be overweight, which can result in health issues in life. In a study published last year tracking more than 17,000 Canadians, researchers found that people who sat for long periods had a higher risk of death, even if they did exercise regularly.

Published in this week's edition of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the editorial suggested that health authorities recommend limits to how much time people spend sitting. "After four hours of sitting, the body starts to send harmful signals," Elin Ekblom-Bak of the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences said. She goes on to explain that certain genes that regulate the amount of glucose and fat in the body starts to shut down.

Exercise does not fully offset the damage done to the body after spending long stretches of time spent sitting. It's suggested that people would benefit more from spreading the exercise throughout the day instead of a single session.

"We don't have enough evidence yet to say how much sitting is bad," said Peter Katzmarzyk of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, who led the Canadian study. "But it seems the more you can get up and interrupt this sedentary behavior, the better."

"People should keep exercising because that has a lot of benefits," Ekblom-Bak said. "But when they're in the office, they should try to interrupt sitting as often as possible," she said. "Don't just send your colleague an e-mail. Walk over and talk to him. Standing up."