Sit Longer, Die Sooner

mcgrew writes "Bad news for most of us here — The Chicago Tribune is reporting that even if you get plenty of exercize, sitting down all day reduces your lifespan. From the article: 'Even after adjusting for body mass index (BMI) and smoking, the researchers found that women who sit more than 6 hours a day were 37 percent more likely to die than those who sit less than 3 hours; for men, long-sitters were 17 percent more likely to die. People who exercise regularly had a lower risk, but still significant, risk of dying. Those who sat a lot and moved less than three and a half hours per day are the most likely to die early: researchers found a 94 percent increased risk for women and 48 percent increase for men, they announced recently in the American Journal of Epidemiology.'"

Comments

Don't sit down = Immortality

[Anonymous Coward]

the researchers found that women who sit more than 6 hours a day were 37 percent more likely to die than those who sit less than 3 hours; for men, long-sitters were 17 percent more likely to die

You know... I'm pretty sure everyone is 100% likely to die...

Re:Don't sit down = Immortality

[Meshach]

the researchers found that women who sit more than 6 hours a day were 37 percent more likely to die than those who sit less than 3 hours; for men, long-sitters were 17 percent more likely to die

You know... I'm pretty sure everyone is 100% likely to die...

Unless you figure out how to exersize. It might be related to exercise, I cannot tell.

Re:Don't sit down = Immortality

[NemoinSpace]

(and too lazy to look it up)

Pot calling the kettle black ?

Re:Don't sit down = Immortality

[HTH NE1]

It's pretty obvious that:

1. the more time you spend sitting, the more likely you are to die sitting,
2. the more time you spend standing, the more likely you are to die standing,
3. the more time you spend lying down, the more likely you are to die lying down, and
4. the more time you spend switching between these, the more likely you are to die on the set of Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Re:Don't sit down = Immortality

[mkiwi]

Hey, at least they didn't say exorcise-I'd hate to have to do that on a regular basis.

Re:Don't sit down = Immortality

[bareman]

Immortality, Hmmph!

I won't stand for it!

Re:Don't sit down = Immortality

[derGoldstein]

Why use denial when logic will do:
I have no life -- therefor, I cannot die.

Re:Don't sit down = Immortality

[Centurix]

Not me. Thanks to denial, I'm immortal.

You'll need more exorcise than exercise...

Re:Don't sit down = Immortality

[derGoldstein]

Although English is not mi mother tongue

You don't say.

Re:Don't sit down = Immortality

[dangitman]

Well, as James Brown said, "It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." Also, something about some kind of Sex Machine. I think this creed could be adapted to this era of Aeron chairs and teledildonics somehow.

Re:Don't sit down = Immortality

[nomorecwrd]

I must read it before submiting
I must read it before submiting
I must read it before submiting

I mast read it before submiting.. darn!

Re:Don't sit down = Immortality

[The Hatchet]

No, you still die. Everybody dies.

Re:Don't sit down = Immortality

[bhiestand]

the researchers found that women who sit more than 6 hours a day were 37 percent more likely to die than those who sit less than 3 hours; for men, long-sitters were 17 percent more likely to die

You know... I'm pretty sure everyone is 100% likely to die...

Speak for yourself. My life insurance agent promised me that I will never see a penny of that money.

Re:Don't sit down = Immortality

[sorak]

Hey, at least they didn't say exorcise-I'd hate to have to do that on a regular basis.

You hate it? How do you think the ghosts feel. You're dead, you got nothing better to do than sit around some old house, looking at pictures of someone else's family, and finally you just say

Screw it! I'm bored as hell, so I'm just going to move that figurine, right there. Haha, that'll mess with 'em.

Oh, they moved it back. Man, I miss my old pony...and being alive. I think the thing I miss most about life is talking to people without them freaking out. They say "oh how I miss uncle Jacob", but all it takes is a little "I miss you too", and suddenly it's all "get a priest this", and "go back to hell that". Why can't I have a cool family that just smokes pot and breaks out the Ouija board. Sure, I can't get a contact buzz, but the pot makes it so much easier to mess with them. I don't even have to move their keys, I just have to wait for them to forget where they left them.

Then some superstitious old perv comes in, starts splashing water everywhere, and suddenly you're flying back to hell. It's not entirely fair.

"Exersize"?

[PhxBlue]

I think "exersize" is what you call someone who doesn't exercise. :)

Re:"Exersize"?

[Anachragnome]

"I think "exersize" is what you call someone who doesn't exercise. :)"

SuperSize...a minor savings that induces you to eat more.

GiantSize...Fuck the cost, I'm hungry.

ExerSize...So big, lifting it burns calories.

Re:"Exersize"?

[amicusNYCL]

I was searching the comments to see if someone has already commented on exercizzzze... LOL

Thanks for the update, I was just wondering what you were doing.

Another brick in the wall...

[SOdhner]

If I start to add up all the things I do that make me more likely to die it gets depressing fast. In fact, I'm now so depressed all I have the energy to do is sit here and eat ice cream. God damn it.

Re:Another brick in the wall...

[Anonymous Coward]

What you need is an excuse to go outside and stroll around at regular intervals. Like smoking.

Re:Another brick in the wall...

[CharlyFoxtrot]

What you need is an excuse to go outside and stroll around at regular intervals. Like smoking.

The always relevant IT Crowd: "You cannot smoke here, they are moving us to a new smoking area."

Re:Another brick in the wall...

[derGoldstein]

I mean, Aging is mostly caused by breathing Oxygen!

Definitely. If you stop breathing for long enough, you'll stop aging.

Re:Another brick in the wall...

[queazocotal]

The FA is a report of a study.
The excersize at your desk recommendations are simply the result of a journalist googling for a couple of minutes to pad out the article.

There is no proof in the study that this would help at all.

It might for example be an effect due to cranial blood pressure being lower when standing, leading to reduced strokes.

It might be small clots forming in the legs during prolonged sitting, and this impacting health.

It might be that the wheel bearings on office chairs emit a really toxic vapour.

Or even the real effect is lying down for too long, and people that lie longer tend to sit longer.

Or a combination of all of these factors.

This sort of statistical study is almost useless taken alone.

You might reduce this effect with blood pressure drugs, better seat design, changing lubricant, or getting out of bed.

It seems logical that the excersizes listed would help - but absenting another large study - it's hard to prove.

To die? But not sooner?

[dissy]

the researchers found that women who sit more than 6 hours a day were 37 percent more likely to die than those who sit less than 3 hours; for men, long-sitters were 17 percent more likely to die

Wow. There is ANY percentage of people that are not likely to die?

I shall never sit again!

More likely to die?

[e065c8515d206cb0e190]

the researchers found that women who sit more than 6 hours a day were 37 percent more likely to die than those who sit less than 3 hours

ORLY?
I thought the two groups were equally certain to die...

Re:More likely to die?

[DeadDecoy]

Stupid (multiple) copy-paste summaries never mention source. Hell they don't even get the title right. The article is: "Leisure Time Spent Sitting in Relation to Total Mortality in a Prospective Cohort of US Adults" with the link at Oxford Journals. Basically, they looked at men and women ages ~50-70 and found an increased rate in death for those who sat around like lumps vs those that got exercise. It looks like 20% of the men died and 10% of the women (though I don't have the values give those that answered yes/no for sitting on the questionnaire).

Re:Huh?

[mozumder]

Are you sure about the 100% chance of dying?

I haven't died.

Tell that to Buddhist Monks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally anecdotal; I haven't done a scientific study, but I have noticed that Buddhist monks, you know, that guys that sit perfectly still 8 hours a day 7 days a week, tend to live much, much longer than the average person. I think that is a bit of a hole in their study.

Re:Tell that to Buddhist Monks!

[mpeskett]

It's a bastardly nitpicking point and I think your point is a good one despite it, but any group consisting mostly of adults will show a higher life expectancy than average because it excludes the hump of child mortality. Vegetarians can probably quite honestly claim to live longer than average, since most vegetarians decide to adopt their diet at some point after infancy, but the same could be said of any other adult group.

I don't have any data to hand on Buddhist monks, but I'd guess that they tend to already be adults before they get really devoted to it, so the same effect would be at work. But, the fact that they aren't all horribly unhealthy despite the hours of meditation does challenge the idea that physical inactivity directly correlates with mortality.

Maybe it's the diet; low energy food with a low energy lifestyle has to be better for you than crappy food and 8 hours in an office chair (followed by another hour or two in the car and several more hours sat about at home). Or all the meditation, as against physical inactivity while working; I hear stress can do nasty things to your health.

Correlation? Causation?

[drinkypoo]

The article doesn't cover correlation vs. causation at all. Does anyone have a link to an abstract or similar?

Re:I really need to get my walkstation set up

[Anonymous Coward]

I've done it, works well. I spent ages looking for a solution and they're all crap, or crazy prices. In the end I used a few lengths of 2x4 to make an H with the tops shorter than the bottom. The cross member sits tall with the side bars flat. It slots in behind the main tread panel and allows a laptop to sit on the prongs pointing forward with the cross bar pushing against the rear of the panel. Not all treads have the support bar below the panel, so you may need to create a stand of some kind.

Tips: Running and walking at pace is not going to work. You're bouncing around and typing is a real PITA. If you want to burn calories, put it on a steep incline. Have a hand towel to hand, you'll sweat a lot and you don't want that dribbling onto your laptop. Have a water bottle or two to hand too, you'll need it.

You'll be able to do 3 hour sessions without really knowing it once you get the hang of movement and keyboard work. I had to forget doing paperwork, or using pen, making notes etc, it simply didn't work for me. But pure coding, if you know what you're doing, is a breeze.

The hardest part is forcing yourself to do it. It's far easier to slough in a chair behind a couple of huge monitors.

Re:Huh?

[falzer]

I might get modded down for this, but I haven't died either, and I suspect others like me are beginning to come out of the closet.

Re:Sitting leading cause of death in the world!

[Nadaka]

No, it just feels like forever.

Duh!

[martin-boundary]

A stationary target is much easier to hit by a falling piano, but walk around a bit, and you'll only lose a kidney from the flying wood splinters.

Re:And in other news...

[X_DARK_X]

What's jesus and what do you take it with?

Exercise Ball

[tobiah]

I sit on one of those exercise balls while programming. It keeps you moving and discourages slouching.

Hmm.. stats don't lie

[way2trivial]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Number_of_humans_who_have_ever_lived

Estimates of "the total number of people who have ever lived" published in the 2000s range approximately from 100 to 115 billion (1 E11).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
The world population is the population of humans on the planet Earth. In 2009, the United Nations estimated the population to reach 7,000,000,000 in 2011;[1] current estimates by the United States Census Bureau put the population at 6,864,700,000.[2]

Math
7/100 or 7/115

it's really only an 93-94% mortality rate so far.. who knows what tomorrow will bring
I'm currently beating the odds......

People who stand all day *still* die

[joelsanda]

As George Carlin said, "Eat well, stay fit, and die anyway."

Link to the actual paper

[timeOday]

The article doesn't, but the abstract of the actual paper says all participants (53,440 men and 69,776 women) were disease free at enrollment and the followup period was 14 years. Moreover they adjusted for smoking, body mass index, and "other factors." Too bad the full paper is behind a paywall. However the case for causation looks quite strong.

Re:Link to the actual paper

[Un pobre guey]

The abstract ends with this disturbing assertion based on their statistical study of a large amount of empirical data:
"The time spent sitting was independently associated with total mortality, regardless of physical activity level. Public health messages should include both being physically active and reducing time spent sitting."

In effect, no matter what else you do, the more time you spend sitting, the shorter your lifespan. That is some nasty shit.

Re:Oh fuck off.

[MartinSchou]

Did you even make it past the first paragraph?

and for how long the research was conducted ? what was the sample size ?

The article:

That's the sobering news from a new study that tracked more than 100,000 adults for 14 years. Researchers from the American Cancer Society in Atlanta followed 53,000 men and 70,000 women and asked them to fill out questionnaires about their physical activity.

So ... yes. Obviously they completely left out the information you were missing. Especially the bit where they're expecting you to, you know, read the fucking article.

'likely to die'. gee. no relevant cause of death

The article:

Unlike most bad news, this one is best heard standing up: people who sit more than 6 hours a day are more likely to die earlier.

That's the first fucking paragraph of the article. So not only are you an idiot, you're also blind.

Not All That New News

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

FYI - similar information was reported in BusinessWeek a few months ago, referencing studies from as far back as 2005

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_19/b4177071221162.htm

One approach to avoiding these problems is the treadmill desk. Around five years ago I had a leg injury that made sitting very painful - driving was torture - so I spent about a year standing in front a raised desk each work day. It took about a week to get used to it (the alternative being constant pain from sitting down probably helped to speed my acclimation). Once I had adjusted, I found standing just as comfortable as sitting. I expect that using a treadmill to simply walk at a very leisurely pace would be just as easy and I am planning to furnish my home office with one once the new house is built.

Original source

[alexhs]

Of course with reposts of reposts the story can get a little inaccurate...

• American Cancer Society press release
• The actual paper (if someone has a subscription to American Journal of Epidemiology Online)

So the most obvious difference is that they're talking about leisure time spent sitting.
Also, it seems that the correlation is by means of "everything else being equal" (which is ok by itself, but the reporting is screwing about that). It doesn't mean that people with regular physical activity but sitting a lot have a higher mortality rate than people with lesser physical activity but sitting less, only that for the same level of activity, people sitting more in their leisure time have a higher mortality rate.

It costs $40 to RTFA

[tepples]

read the fucking article

From the article:

Pay per View - If you would like to purchase short-term access you must have a personal account. Please sign in with your personal user name and password or register to obtain a user name and password for free. You may access this article for 1 day for US$40.00.

I hope you didn't mean that only people who have paid for access to the article have the privilege of joining the discussion. Did you mean something different? But I will grant that the abstract mentions deaths "during the 14-year follow-up".

Re:It costs $40 to RTFA

[MartinSchou]

And that article is NOT linked in the summary in this particular story. Since there is only one article linked in the summary, it is obvious to anyone that that would be THE article in question.

That you happen to have dug up the actual report, something neither the poster nor the article write did, changes nothing. All the information I have posted and the grand parent wanted, was in the linked article, free to anyone to read.

Re:6 billion counterexamples

[Anonymous Coward]

Immortality is a physics problem. Doctors may be able to prolong life, but I doubt they will solve the universes inevitable end (big crunch, heat death, proton decay, or whatever). I am still pretty confident that everyone has to die.

Forget the health implications.

[ikarous]

Sitting just hurts.

I'm young and in good health, so I haven't given much thought to the long term health implications of too much sitting. What I can anecdotally report is that the more time I spend in a chair, the worse I feel. The relationship is almost linear. Not coincidentally, the realization didn't dawn on me until after I graduated from college and began working full time. Before graduation, I spent a lot of time on my feet walking to and from class and to work, since I had the good fortune to have an internship within walking distance of my college campus. This was only eight months ago, but the change in my energy level is very discernible. I can only imagine how pronounced the effect would be when magnified over the course of many years.

But that's just the job. I imagine that for most of the Slashdot audience, sitting at work is often unavoidable, unless you can afford a nice walkstation setup. What about when you're not actually at your desk, though? Usually, you're still sitting, even if you're going somewhere.

The biggest sitting problem (for Americans, at least) outside of work is that our cities, our jobs, and even our recreation is not really intended for pedestrians. I love to walk, but many places and jobs are not pedestrian-friendly. I have so grown to loathe driving that my long term plans include moving to a city where it's easier to get places by walking or riding a bike, possibly for this reason alone. Currently I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, which I feel is one of the least walkable areas on the planet (though there are notable neighborhoods that provide exceptions). The metropolitan area has suffered badly from the urban sprawl blight, so if you're lucky enough to live with your romantic partner, chances are, at least one of you is going to have to deal with a commute. The course of my day starts off with a thirty minute drive, followed by sitting on my tush for the subsequent eight hours. Then I drive another forty-five minutes home. Unless I then drive to the nearest gym, which, due to the sprawl here, is likely to be more than six miles away, I'm pretty much stuck indoors again. Side note: a 117 degree heat index does not a happy human make. I have seen Texans drive to their mail box.

The economic forces that drive sprawl really kill the cores of cities and make life miserable for commuters. My partner is burgeoning traffic engineer, and he's taught me some of the things that walkability projects can do to improve life for both residents and businesses in a city. Suburban Nation is an excellent read on the subject. You can also check out Walkscore to see how your neighborhood ranks. It's pretty neat stuff, and I wish more people would care about this issue.

Re:Forget the health implications.

[TeknoHog]

The biggest sitting problem (for Americans, at least) outside of work is that our cities, our jobs, and even our recreation is not really intended for pedestrians.

I think the biggest problem is that "pedestrian" is a bit like "pederast". I'll rather take the car than be confused with one of those.

Re:6 billion counterexamples

[derGoldstein]

Well, if you're going to be literal about it -- there's no stable definition for *life* at all. I can't find the article, but I think it was slashdotted within the past month.

The simpler definitions for life must include crystal growth and possibly fire. The more complicated ones, which exclude what we'd consider "chemical" or "mechanical", don't exclude botnets and some internet-spreading malware. Under some definitions, warez can be considered a parasitic organism, and any programmable computer as a form of host to all sorts of "life forms".

Now add the blurry definitions for "consciousness" and what "being self-aware" means, along with the debate over whether or not we have free will on any level, and you could say that we are both dead and alive at the same time, and/or that our property of "being alive" flickers on and off.

So, what else to do other than sitting?

[Psaakyrn]

Other than sitting, standing, walking, and laying down, I can't really think of what else to do. Given 12 hours sleep and 3 hours sitting, that still leaves me with 9 hours of whatever. I can't really imagine why I'd need to stand or walk for more than 4 hours... Maybe I'll just go and lie down some more. That's still ok, right?

Bad Study

[b4upoo]

School kids and college kids would be dropping like flies. They sit a lot.
                              In older folks with medical issues sitting is a forced situation as death and infirmities tighten their grip. Yes, if you go in a nursing home it is hard to find many inmates that walk more than 30 minutes a day. Then again college students, in order to attend classes and do their studies, often sit more than ten hours a day.
                              One wonders if these studies took age and illness into consideration? As a matter of fact young folks smart enough to go to college are not involved in active military service and spend less time on motorcycles and scuba diving etc.. I'll bet that non college young folks suffer far greater death rates and those who do not go to college probably stand a lot more hours each day. After all ditch digging offers little sitting time.

Re:I really need to get my walkstation set up

[queazocotal]

To quote from the summary of the original article referenced. (alas, I don't have $40 to spare to read the paer)

"Evidence supports that reducing time spent sitting, regardless of activity, may improve the metabolic consequences of obesity"

So - the study only addresses obese people.

Statistics and the original report

[definate]

Here is the original report: Leisure Time Spent Sitting in Relation to Total Mortality in a Prospective Cohort of US Adults

Such large sample sizes scare me. When you've got 100,000 data points, almost anything seems statistically significant.

Having a look at the abstract of the page "Leisure Time Spent Sitting in Relation to Total Mortality in a Prospective Cohort of US Adults", I am not sure about some of this... After reading that, I got more interested in it and just got the original article, though that doesn't help much, it's missing a lot of summary data, none the less...

• The results were via questionnaire, my guess is that people who believe they are more healthy, would underestimate the amount they sit, and people who don't, might overestimate it.
• 50% to 73% of the people who answered these questionnaires were "Retired/homemaker" with the mean age being 63.6 (standard deviation, 6) for me, and 61.9 (standard deviation, 6.5) for women. This was when they enrolled in the study in 1992, making them on average 77.6 for men, and 75.9 for women. For comparison look at the life expectancy data for people born in those years, this puts them firmly in the timespan where they were expected to die.
• Looking at the mean ages, there is a correlation between hours sat per day, and mean age. So those who are apart of the group who sits more, are also those who are oldest.
• On the mens side 52% to 57% are former smokers. On the womens side 48% to 60% never smoked, which might be correct for that generation but I am uncertain. Though they have corrected for this, I wonder how they corrected, and if that correction is legitimate.
• There appears to be an abnormally large amount of people who have NEVER consumed alcohol for women that's 44% to 47%, and for me that's 31% to 32%. This seems amazing of this sample, since I don't drink, and everyone points out how weird it is.
• This sample group was obtained from participants in the American Cancer Society's CPS-II Nutrition Cohort, as such the sample might over represent people worried about cancer and similar illnesses because they have higher instances of it in their family. They had people report their personal history to control for some of these things, but not their family history.

Additionally I would really need to get into their statistical method more, and get their original data, as it looks like there could be many more problems.

I would take this study, with a fuck load of salt.

Re:I really need to get my walkstation set up

[Aalst]

It's annoying that they hide the research behind paywalls, but my institution have forked over money for access.

The participants were drawn from a mortality study by the ACS begun in 1992. The objective of the 1992 study (184,190 participants) was to investigate the relation between diet and mortality across the population (details in The American Cancer Society Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort) From the section on "Materials and Methods" in the present paper we see that they didn't leave out non-obese people:

We excluded sequentially from this analysis men and women who reported a personal history of cancer (n = 21,785), heart attack (n = 11,560), stroke (n = 2,513), or emphysema/other lung disease (n = 9,321) at the time of enrollment. We also excluded individuals with missing data on physical activity (n = 4,240), missing sitting time (n = 2,954), missing or extreme (top and bottom 0.1%) values of body mass index (n = 2,121), or missing smoking status (n = 1,347) at baseline. Finally, to reduce the possibility of undiagnosed serious illness at baseline that would preclude or interfere with physical activity, we excluded individuals who reported both no daily life activities and no light housekeeping (n = 4,730), as well as those who died from any cause within the first year of follow-up (n = 403). After exclusions, the analytical cohort consisted of 123,216 individuals (53,440 men and 69,776 women) with a mean age of 63.6 (standard deviation, 6.0) years in men and 61.9 (standard deviation, 6.5) years in women when enrolled in the study in 1992.

They did record BMIs and what they found was the following:

We examined the association between time spent sitting and total mortality in men and women combined, stratified by body mass index (Table 3). Although time spent sitting and physical activity were more strongly associated with mortality among lean persons (for time spent sitting, P_interaction = 0.06; for physical activity, P_interaction = 0.002), both measures were significantly associated with risk of total mortality regardless of body mass index.

I knew you were killing me slashdot!

[w0mprat]

But now it's confirmed.

Awesome suicide method!

[IllusionalForce]

Let's all just sit here all day. We're gonna die anyway, so we might as well abuse it. Don't feel like living? Just sit here and play NetHack!