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Comment by siodine | Hacker News Reader

Last I checked, there's no conclusive evidence showing a standing desk has any health benefits over sitting. Treadmill desks, on the other hand...

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There is evidence in the opposite direction:

http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/CUESitStand.html

Being stationary in either a sitting or standing position is bad. There are ways in which sitting is uniquely bad, but there are also ways in which standing is uniquely bad. Both are bad. The answer is: you need to walk around or in some other way incur gross motor exercise regularly, on the order of twice an hour or so.

This has been one of 'tzs beats on HN for the past year; he's written some pretty detailed comments, try searching at the bottom of this page for [standing by:tzs].

That's... pretty alarming. I wish it had citations so we could evaluate how compelling the evidence is.

Just Google for [atherosclerosis standing]. This is well-studied, not because of ergonomics but because of correlations between heart disease and the occupations of people likely to develop heart disease.

There have been a few articles linking sitting to shortened life lately. E.g.:

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/sitting-2-years...

And a year ago:

"The study found that women who sit for more than six hours a day were about 40 percent more likely to die during the study than women who sat fewer than three hours per day."

http://www.healthkicker.com/751136264/sitting-for-hours-may-...

Yes, but there are similar problems with standing.

http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/CUESitStand.html#

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10...

I think this is why people who pay attention this sort of stuff want sit/stand desks, like Geek Desks, or something like the OP, who I think wants to be able to stand sometimes and sit sometimes.

This comes up a lot. It seems like a worst-of-both-worlds solution. Prolonged sitting has been shown to disrupt fat metabolism. Prolonged standing is associated with a ninefold increase in carotid atherosclerosis. Even if sitting half the time leaves me with only a doubled exposure to atherosclerosis: that's not a win!

I've got a timer on my iPhone, two different spots in the office to sit (my desk and one of the couches in the lobby), and no weird gadgets; the Cornell page seems to suggest that this is pretty optional, and I dont' have to pronounce any weird Ikea furniture names to describe it. :)

Yup, this seems to be the best solution, and surprisingly makes the laptop the best workstation. You get to change your workspace every 30 minutes to an hour with ease. And virtual desktops + remoting into more powerful computers mitigates the problems with a laptop.

I'm part of a small cluster of people here who don't like big monitors, because it makes working on the laptop screen harder when I don't have it (I get acclimated). Mobility is much more valuable to me than screen real estate.

I'm not sure you can interpolate between the two situations.

One of the potential reasons behind both of these is that being sedentary in any position is essentially bad (in one way or another - a PhD out of Australia whose name escapes me has done the research here).

The body was built to move, giving extra options seems like a win and puts less stress on any one system (esp. musculo-skeletal).

You have to ask yourself, what is the process by which prolonged standing causes or exacerbates atherosclerosis, then try to reason through how much standing you'd need to do to increase your risk significantly. I find stuff like this to be un-encouraging:

A recent study reports a reduction of plasma volume by 500-550ml or about 16% after only 15 minutes of quiet standing. The reduction in plasma volume in turn triggers several changes that can be grouped into hemodynamic and humoral effects, including but not limited to increased hemoconcentration, increased release of catecholamines, changes in pulse pressure, and increased heart rate. For example, one recent study measured a significant increase in heart rate and catecholamines after 10 minutes of standing for men with CVD and also for healthy referents. (em mine)

Increases catecholamines = increased stress.

I'm not sure about the health benefits, but it certainly helps your posture.

Tell that to people who stand all day and end up having back problems.

I'm curious if these people maintain their posture all day, or start to slouch (and the slouching causes the back problems).

You definitely burn more calories per hour standing than sitting

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