To Your HealTH Stuck at your desk? Sit down - we’ve got some bad news for you. Actually, you should probably stand up. Some researchers in Sweden caused quite a stir earlier this year when their paper was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. In essence, they said that, even if you exercise 30 to 60 minutes per day but spend much of the rest of the day sitting, you may be at increased risk of metabolic syndrome (diseases like diabetes) and death. While their conclusions are drawn from a small but consistent pool of data, there appears to be significant support for their findings here in the States. James Levine, MD, an obesity specialist at the Mayo Clinic said to Science Magazine back in 2005, “What fascinates me is that humans evolved over 1.5 million years entirely on the ability to walk and move. And literally 150 years ago, 90% of human endeavor was still agricultural. In a tiny speck of time we’ve become chair-sentenced.” Dr. Levine has since become somewhat of a guru for the “treadmill desk” and made the first live demonstration on “Good Morning America” in 2007 [we link to the video on our website, which is worth the five minutes it takes to watch it]. And we didn’t have to travel far from San Luis Obispo to find someone that agreed with him. “Short of sitting on a spike, you can’t do much worse than a standard office chair,” says Galen Cranz, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. She goes on to give a useful visual comparing the spine to an “S” shape when standing and a “C” shape when sitting, and explains how the “S” is much stronger than the “C” and so on. She asserts that “the spine was not meant to stay for recommended reading: -The New York Times, February 23, <strong>2010</strong> long periods in a seated position.” On the surface, these arguments seem to make a lot of sense, but you have to dig deeper to really understand how it all works. For that we picked up on the research of Marc Hamilton, a microbiologist at the University of Missouri, who concurs with the Swedes when he says “sitting too much is not the same as exercising too little. They do completely different things to the body.” Hamilton, like many of the researchers we found who study the effects of sitting, does not own an office chair. He claims that “when you sit, the muscles are relaxed and enzyme activity, which breaks down fats, drops by 90% to 95%, leaving fat to camp out in the bloodstream. Within a couple hours of sitting, healthy cholesterol plummets by 20%.” Although the ideal situation would be to just not sit as much, for many of us - particularly during the work day at the office - that may not be a realistic possibility. A decent alternative appears to be what researchers call “perching” which means half-standing, half-sitting on a barstool at a height that keeps the weight on the legs and leaves the S-shaped curve intact. In a traditional office environment where you are sitting at a computer, this means that you would have to elevate your desk. While we find this subject matter quite compelling, frankly we are getting a little “freaked out” by the length of time we are sitting at our desks researching it. There is a lot of great information that we link to on our website, but, for now, we’re going for a walk! <strong>SLO</strong> <strong>LIFE</strong> “ It doesn’t matter if you go running every morning, or you’re a regular at the gym. If you spend most of the rest of the day sitting — in your car, your office chair, on your sofa at home — you are putting yourself at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death. In other words, irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you. ” Have a health question? Go to slolifemagazine.com and share your curiosity with us. 24 | slo life magazine
intRoducing ER Watch Real time information on Emergency Room wait time. HOURS MINUTES Before you head to the Sierra Vista Emergency Room with a problem that needs attention but isn’t life threatening, log on to our website and get real time information on how quickly you can see a doctor. www.SierraVistaRegional.com Quality. Service. Innovation. 1010 Murray Avenue, San Luis obispo For physician referral, call (800) 483-6387 SierraVistaRegional.com | twitter.com/SierraVistaRMc slo life magazine | 25
Change language