Sitting for hours can shave years off life
cnn.com
cnn.com
Here's me: I haven't eaten vegetables since I was 8 years old. I sit down in front of a computer screen for multiple hours a day. I eat any junk food I want, as long as it tastes good. I drop a ton of water weight before a fight for weighing purposes. I've learned the physically straining technique, Needle through Glass (throwing a sewing needle through a pane of glass), and I do a lot of binge training.
Although I'm perfectly healthy right now, is it possible that I'll die when I'm 60? Yeah. But at least I'll have fully enjoyed my life. It beats the hell out of half living for 90 years. Not to mention, it's also possible your life will be cut short by a rampaging bus... and that has nothing to do with preventable measures.
My two cents.
I do eat saturated fat, however, but I'm not convinced after reading Taubes's "Good Calories, Bad Calories" that it is unhealthy for me. So, I eat my vegetables sauteed in lard, bacon fat, or duck fat. It tastes great, and I wouldn't want to give them up for a chocolate bar.
Nobody should make health a top value above everything else, and I know some do -- health is a means to your life and I would sacrifice some of my health if it meant more enjoyment. But in most cases, I find better health means not just longevity, but enjoying the time I actually do have.
Well, duh, that's what stimulants are for.
A) the notion that eating fatty food and sitting in a chair all day is the peak of "pleasure" or "satisfaction", which in my opinion is a very shallow viewpoint. The accomplishment of running a marathon or achieving a related athletic goal is much more satisfying than cheetos, to me at least.
B) the notion that every person's 60-80 years are equal regardless of health choices. Eating healthily and exercising make my life better now in ways that cheetos can't. Even if an unhealthy person and a healthy person both died at 60, the quality of life during those 60 years would no doubt be higher for the latter.
Sometimes (most of the time unless you have a really deep bank account) you just have to feed yourself. When you just have to feed yourself, eat something healthy.
Exercise releases all of the good feeling brain chemicals. As A life long computer-nerd/couch potato, I will testify that it is shocking how good it feels to exercise.
Eating properly and being in shape does a ton to boost self image. (As i'm sure motor bikes and nice meals do too).
Of course, none of pleasurably food, excitement and a healthy lifestyle are mutually exclusive.
A month of squats at the gym later, I feel great. Half of it might be good technique, but my knees no longer hurt or crack...
Ok, so most junk food uses some vegetables as a filler. Usually desiccated starch from potatoes & the like. So you are certainly eating vegetables, maybe not raw but cooked.
"I sit down in front of a computer screen for multiple hours a day"
Don't. The damage from laptop radiation is irreversible, unlike gaining 50 lbs on purpose and then reversing all of it by going on a crash diet like chuck noland.
paraphrasing - " low frequency magnetic fields can produce changes in biological systems... Current scientific understanding does not yet allow us to interpret the evidence...Even more frustrating, it does not yet allow us to offer advice to avoid potential risks"
Where's the cure for cancer? Where's the cure for diabetes? Heart disease? Hell, they're just now passing around the (new?) concept that a hi-carbo diet is _bad_ for you! Organized medicine still doesn't know it's ass from a hole in the ground.
We're all gonna die like everyone else does today: organized medicine isn't going to save us. The only question is, how much of our earned income are we willing to pass to those charlatans before we die.
Live forever? Hah! Not with those clowns in charge!
1) We first learned how to deal with purely physical trauma types of problem - bandaging, splinting etc.
2) we then learned how to do pain relief (opium, aspirine)
3) we then learned how to deal with external microbes (antibiotics)
4) we are just starting to learn how to deal with viruses, which requires understanding their DNA. I would not be surprised to see viruses under control in the next 10 years or so, as gene sequencing / analysis gets better.
Now the thing about 3 and 4 is that they're relatively independant of the genotype/phenotype of the person being treated. You can take the same medication and apply it to anyone suffering those types of disease, and it will work.
What's remaining is the admittedly large class of diseases that are mostly caused by a person's own genotype/phenotype. Here we're talking about heart disease, immune system diseases, cancer. It is not likely that we will be able to find a one-size-fits-all solution to these diseases, which means that we won't be able to knock them over until we gain the capacity to manufacture a medication for an individual.
Still, with the ever-increasing CPU capability that we have at the moment, it doesn't seem inconceivable that these types of drugs will be available in 40 years or so, at which point it starts to become interesting to try and figure out just how we are going to die. At that point we will presumably have the necessary control over cell reproduction to allow the regeneration of tissue etc. For example, at the moment we think aging is linked to the loss of telomeres. Imagine taking a single heart muscle cell, and replacing all of the lost telomeres through genetic manipulation, and then re-inserting the heart cell into a patient. If aging theory is correct, this one cell will eventually (on the timeframe of decades) come to to dominate the number of cells in the heart, as non-modified cell lines will die out due to the loss of telomeres during reproduction. No more heart attacks.
Now, I've just plucked that 40 year figure out of the air, it might be 100 years, or 200 years, which of course would probably be too late for most of us. But the thing is that it is useless to compare the rate of medical advances of the past with what we're expecting to see in the future. Future development is going to be based on a very fine-grained understanding of life processes, whereas that has just not been possible up until very recently.
People who do nothing physically demanding and sit at a desk all day are a lot more at risk. And probably not enjoying a full range of activities either.
If you live healthy, you die healthy.
I recommend simply setting a timer for about 20 minutes as a reminder to get up and walk around for a minute or two. Also, it is probably a good idea to walk around the block (at least) a few times each work day.
That is, let's not be so quick to patch the problem with the first thing that isn't a chair.
I've found that breaking my day into about half sitting / half standing has been roughly optimal. I've been unable to stand for the entire day without a fair amount of ankle/foot pain.
From Wikipedia, "[...] sedentary drivers of London's double-decker buses had higher rates of cardiovascular disease than the conductors who climbed the stairs" and "[Jerry Morris] performed further studies that showed slow movements such as gardening helped very little and exercise had to be more vigorous to help."
It definitely feels healthier then the sore back and thighs I'd get from sitting still all day.
Very, very unlikely.
The whole "exercise good, sitting kills you" thing was first noticed in England among bus drivers in 1953. There the driver and conductor were from similar socio-economic backgrounds, similar pay, etc, but one sat all day, and the other stood. Drivers died much faster than conductors. Every significant followup since has confirmed the basic conclusion. Sitting all day is not healthy for us.
From Wikipedia, "[...] sedentary drivers of London's double-decker buses had higher rates of cardiovascular disease than the conductors who climbed the stairs" and "[Jerry Morris] performed further studies that showed slow movements such as gardening helped very little and exercise had to be more vigorous to help."
2) a brick. A brick sculptor friend of mine was advised by a worker at the brick plant to keep one foot on a brick to rest it, alternating as needed. Says she's never had another day of back or foot pain.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dap...
The first week was a bit brutal and my heels were really sore at the end of the day, but luckily my dad does ergonomic consulting and had an anti-fatigue mat lying around, now I can stand 8+ hours a day and not feel any pain or soreness. I get to walk around more and I feel a lot more productive than when I was sitting. Oh, also I am burning about 1300+ calories for standing each work day, which is about an hour of intense cardio.
If you have been on the fringe about working standing up, I say do it. Just make sure you get an anti-fatigue mat because that will take a lot of pressure off your feet.
You're working hard. On your feet all day but this study proves that you're going to outlive those people at corporate who are sitting at a desk all day. You're better than them.
I can think of a lot of great products to market with this study like beer or DIY stuff. Here in the US, I would not be surprised to see this study touted by politicians looking for working class votes.
Make people think they are exercising more than others and they'll love you. Make them exercise more and they'll hate you.
If you decide to get an exercise ball as a chair substitute, the advice I have received from a YMCA trainer is to size it so that your hips are higher than your knees when you sit on it. For a lot of men of near-average height, a 65cm ball will do. The size can be adjusted up or down a little by how much you inflate the ball.
A couple other caveats: 1)it can bit quite tiring on your back (especially at first) to sit on one for 8-10 hours. 2) since you're sitting on rubber, if it's the least bit warm, things tend to get a bit sweaty down there... :)
I wonder what would happen if the findings for this were also detrimental for ones health?
I guess the thing to think about is; moderation is the key to success in a lot of things in life.
... you should probably plan to take the video in the first few minutes. After that it'll probably be a moot point.
*"The ConferenceBike is pedaled by 7 riders sitting in a circle. One person steers while the other 6 pedal (or not) as the bike moves effortlessly along."
"Correlation does not imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."
Which is why this story keeps coming up. Sitting for 8-10 hours a day is NOT countered by going to the gym for another 2.
They make no mention of also measuring overall activity levels, which you would need to do to account for that potential confounding common cause. Perhaps the real study did this, but CNN does not tell us, nor do they tell us which study this actually was so we can look for ourselves. I suspect the real study's conclusions are not as strong as this reporting on it.
"What's particularly interesting about recent research is the revelation that sitting for extended periods of time does significant damage to human health that cannot be undone by exercising."
Crappy reporting on science as usual, but it says it right there "recent research" + "revelation" + "sitting for extended periods" + "damage" + "cannot be undone by exercising."
You can't even say "you might as well just try it, it can't hurt"... are you that sure that standing in one place for years at a time is that much better than sitting in one place for years at a time? What if standing in one place without activity is even harder on you than sitting in one place without activity? Is even being on a treadmill that much better? That's not a very natural activity pattern either, is it?
Science is hard.
Here, I think this article actually explains the research better: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17sitting-t.h...
From a mental perspective however sometimes getting up and walking around the office or the building helps me focus because there are so many windows on my desktop feeding me information.
I'm actually more interested in the mathematics of causality which is formally contained in Probability Theory. (See Judea Pearl's "Causality" for a full treatment...) One expression can be in the form of Prob(Y = y | do(X = x)) (essentially invoking a "do" operator in your given information), another form of representation is with graphs and arrows; electrical engineers have no problems with causality (at least for normal things). Here's my speculation, but I'd say that in the framework of probability theory, a correlative implication can be expressed as background information. And so you ask if prob(short life given unhealthy and some common set of bg info) > prob(short life given just the bg info) to see if there's an "implication" there you may want to investigate and perhaps infer a causation by performing a do() operation (e.g. controlled experiment).
Also I find it interesting that physics doesn't have any notion of "causality" in the equations, they just state a relationship. "F = m*a" works in time-reverse as well as time-forward (though this isn't always the case for all the laws, some change under mirror reflection or charge differences).
Anyway, I'm not a formal mathematician, someone more knowledgeable can correct me on anything. Read Pearl, Jaynes, etc. if you want more probability theory!
He's got a PhD in Physical Therapy, so I'd rather listen to what he has to say about being healthy behind a desk than a story with a sensationalist headline.
Besides, I'm in pretty poor health due to my own lack of attention to it and of all the things I could bother with, "standing all day at my desk" is pretty far down on the list of what would actually make an important improvement.
Plus, you know, I'd rather spend thousands of dollars on something else. A desk of any useful size that is able to bear any useful weight load on it and is also adjustable in ranges enough to go from sitting to standing are incredibly expensive. I'd rather use the money to pay three or four months of my mortgage.
Works great. I love it, even though it's a bit ugly.
Sitting for hours definitely contributed to my tight, tight hamstrings, and I am paying the price for them right now. I have a bulging disc that is most definitely the result of my tightness. I can barely lift any weight anymore, I can't partake in my favorite activities, even sex has become a chore. It's had a massively negative impact on my enjoyment of life in general.
I have a standing desk now, and I am spending lots of my time and money doing physical therapy and related exercises.
To my desk-bound friends who still have good backs: take frequent breaks and stretch those hammies!
I drink a ton of water, and I mean a ton. I drink so much that I HAVE to get up every hour (at least) to use the restroom. Usually that's closer to 45 minutes. I know drinking too much water isn't healthy either, but I think I am at a nice balance of hydration.
Does anyone else do this?
I'm looking forward to the EU-directive that will ban chairs in bars and restaurants, the same as they did with smoking.
You don't grok socialized medicine. Smoking is illegal because it's a huge expense on tax money! Smoking is expensive because it causes higher rates of diseases. Make the behavior illegal and you move those funds to other governmental activities.
Using a ladder is risky, make ladders illegal. Eating high fat foods is risky, make junk food illegal.
In practice, their tax paying capabilities might diminish while they are still working. And they might even require expensive treatment while they languish.
Smoking is illegal because it's a huge expense on tax money!
I've no idea about other countries, but in the UK (and I don't have a source to cite for this, and it's possible I'm incorrect, but as I was told by a GP - a General Practitioner docter) the taxes paid on tobacco more than cover the cost caused to our National Health Service by smokers.
Regardless, even assuming smoking does cost more than the taxes it raises, that's not the reason for public bans - that is simply because your personal health choices shouldn't be allowed to have negative impact on the health of other people.
Apparently, going out to a place that doesn't reek of ash isn't.
One must keep in mind that, in essence, tobacco, food, alcohol are all addictive substances, tricks to the brain. And when one can be tricked, one can be manipulated.
(IANAB, and I apologize if I'm wrong/uninformed)
My life expectancy without the sitting is about 80. So this is a good thing. 65 years is enough for me.