Sit longer, die sooner

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alvi2047/

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 even for people who exercise regularly after long sit-a-thons at the office and aren't obese.

While exercising is definitely good for health, the new study indicates that people who spend more time sitting during their leisure time have an increased risk of death, regardless of daily exercise.

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

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.

Even people who exercise regularly had a significant, but lower risk of dying. Those who sat a lot and moved less than three and a half hours daily are the most likely to die early: researchers found a 94 percent increased risk for women and 48 percent increase for men.

Source: http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/22/sit-less-live-longer/