Just Stand Up

Updated 9.19.2014; reformatted 8.22.2015
The evidence is mounting that sitting really is the new smoking. According to the linked article from WebMD:

Moreover, every two-hour increase in sitting time was linked to an 8 percent increased risk of colon cancer and a 10 percent increased risk of endometrial cancer.

The risks remained even for "active couch potatoes" -- folks who squeeze in some time at the gym but still spend most of their day off their feet. This suggests that regular exercise can't offset the risks of too much sitting, the study authors said

This more recent NY Times article reports on a recent study out of Sweden that measured the effects of being sedentary on the length of telomeres.

Telomere length and aging.

are a region or repetitive nucleotide sequences at the end of each chromosome. Telomeres protect the chromosome from deterioration, and as a person ages, their length decreases.

Lifestyle choices affect the length of telomeres, so rate of decreasing length isn't a given nor a constant. In the Swedish study discussed at the NYT link above, being sedentary was associated with shorter telomeres. Sedentary here is defined as sitting most of the day, as most people (at least in Westernized economies) do.

They also looked at associations related to the amount of exercise people in the study did. Exercise did not correlate with longer telomere length, in fact, some people who exercised had shorter telomeres. At least in the NYT article, no reason is given for that. To quote the article:

And when the scientists compared telomeres, they found that the telomeres in the volunteers who were sitting the least had lengthened. Their cells seemed to be growing physiologically younger.

Meanwhile, in the control group telomeres generally were shorter than they had been six months before.

But perhaps most interesting, there was little correlation between exercise and telomere length. In fact, the volunteers in the exercise group who had worked out the most during the past six months tended now to have slightly less lengthening and even some shortening, compared to those who had exercised less but stood up more.

Reducing sedentary time had lengthened telomeres, the scientists concluded, while exercising had played little role.

The reason for highlighting this article, of course, is that it is another data point in support of my stand up fitness plan, which was where I started when I got serious about changing my size. Of course, after standing for a few months I tried out a treadmill desk and walked while working. I continue to do so, indeed, I am walking while typing this.

Also noted in the article, was this Canadian study that looked for associations between standing and increased mortality. No such association was found, standing is a low impact way to increase daily energy expenditure (NEAT Power) and is perfectly healthy.

But then there was this not too long ago:

The stupidest treadmill desk post ever.

From the Business Insider comes this entry about a woman who tried a treadmill desk. She walked at 3 mph to best some guy's total distance. What a fool.

Three miles per hour is too fast to do anything, and I remain mystified as to why anyone thinks that they have to go from sitting all day to walking more then 10 miles a day. It took about 6 months to get to the point that I could stand all day, and a bit longer until I could walk all day.

Just because you're doing it wrong doesn't mean it can't be a good idea for the rest of us. And if you're sweating while using the treadmill desk, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!

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