Will the realconclusive study on the health effects of sedentary behavior PLEASE stand up??? Or sit down ... who even knows anymore.
See, it's like this -- every so often a new study comes out declaring that sitting for hours on end is essentially your ticket to an early grave. So then you read it, become increasingly terrified and make a conscious decision to stand more often.
SEE ALSO:Netflix cheating is a phenomenon that can put a pause on your relationshipBut just when you finallyget your standing desk approved by your office manager, another study declares that standing for prolonged periods is equally as threatening to your health.
So where does that leave us, scientists? Alternating between chairs and standing desks? Taking bathroom breaks every five minutes to ensure we get our 10,000 steps in? Jiggling our legs at earthquake-inducing speeds to get that blood circulating? We're just trying to stay alive, here.
Please, take a seat
Although standing desks are all the rage now, back in 2002, standing was NOT consideredsmart. A study discovered some serious health risks associated with standing for more than 8 hours, ranging from lower back pain, foot aches, preterm birth and even spontaneous abortions. In 2005, prolonged standing at work was also linked to an excess risk of varicose veins. Yikes.
There's also this terrifying July 2014 study abouthealth risks associated with prolonged standing at work that will make you feel better each time you drop to your seat. In good news for all the sitters out there, a 2015 study by theInternational Journal of Epidemiologyconcluded that sitting time isn't linked to a risk of death (or as they put it, "all-cause mortality"). Phew. Instead, a lack of physical activity is the problem.
Via GiphyThe latest study to join the confusing pile comes from a team of Australian and British scientists, who found that -- despite all the fretting by daily cubicle inhabitants across the globe -- sitting might not be so bad after all, at least when it comes to diabetes.
In a January paper, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the researchers said there was little evidence linking sitting with incident diabetes over 13 years. The study involved about 4,800 British civil servants, who were on average 44 years old and didn't have diabetes or heart or circulatory problems at the beginning.
Emmanuel Stamatakis, lead author of the paper and an associate professor at the University of Sydney, suggested that we think about sitting at work not so much as a health risk, but as a reflection of our sedentary lifestyles. "Rather than being the 'new smoking,' we need to think of sitting as an important part of the wider problem of physical inactivity," he wrote Tuesday on The Conversation.
So by all means, sit down at work, but at least hit the gym and do some cardio later on.
Now, stand up
The craze around standing desks started slowly. Two studies in 2010, linked sedentary behavior to an increased risk of depressionand cancer. Then in 2012, a Diabetologiastudyfound an abnormal amount of sitting also makes you more susceptible to diabetes, cardiovascular disease and death.
In August 2014, Dr. James Levine -- aka inventor of the treadmill desk -- declaredsitting to be "more dangerous than smoking," a claim which set the world (or at least the break room) on fire. If you weren't freaking out enough and doing squats at your desk, another studythen hit the shelves in 2016, stating that sitting for prolonged stretches might boost your risk of Type 2 diabetes, even if you exercise. Yep.
Via GiphyBut what about my really expensive standing desk? Should I throw it in the bin?
To put things in perspective: Last year, researchers looked at a bunch of studies on the supposed health benefits of standing desks. They found that many individual studies were poorly designed, showed evidence of bias or had too few participants, according to the systematic Cochrane Review.
Their conclusion: there's little proof that buying a standing desk actually means you sit less. In good news, at least it appears like you are doing something healthy.
Stand up? Sit down? Which is it, people?
Since at least the early 2000s, a steady stream of reports have warned of potential health consequences for people who both sit for too long AND stand for too long on the job. So what are we supposed to think? We're tired, can we please take a seat?
Media outlets (ourselves included) are partly to blame for casting these studies as definitive, all-encompassing verdicts on whether you should or shouldn't free your rear end from the chair. But individual studies alone can't tell us the whole picture, said Kay Dickersin, a professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.
"You want to look at all the evidence. You don't want to just look at one study at a time," she said.
"You want to look at all the evidence"
Often researchers focus only on a specific group of people: for instance, workers who stand on their feet all day (say nurses or factory workers), and not office workers who choose to use a standing desk. Or, scientists may look at particular outcomes -- diabetes, obesity, heart disease -- and not the overall health benefits or risks.
Our unscientific takeaway? Mixing it up at work is better than only sitting, or only standing, for the whole day. Or, if you want to get specific, Cornell University experts advise that after sitting for 20-30 minutes, stand up for a bit and move around.
So there you have it: science can't help you, and neither can we.
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