Standing desk health benefits are exaggerated and may increase circulatory diseases, study finds

Photograph: Unsplash / TheStandingDesk

Standing desks are touted as the panacea to our sedentary lifestyles, especially for office workers.

But a recent study found that standing for long periods of time may not be much better than sitting.

Lead author Dr Peters of the University of Sydney’s School of Medicine and Health and deputy director of the Charles Perkins Centre’s Mackenzie Center for Wearable Devices Research. Matthew Ahmadi said: Sunday Morning For those with a sedentary lifestyle, there were other ways to improve their cardiovascular health, says Jim Mora.

“Standing is certainly better than sitting, but standing alone does not reduce your risk of heart disease,” Ahmadi said.

“To do this, we will need to mix in other types of activity that get the body moving.”

Ahmadi’s team recently published a publication. Study examining 100,000 participants A person wears a smartwatch-like accelerometer on their wrist for a week, using data from the UK Biobank.

His team followed them for nearly eight years to document their risk of hospitalization and death from heart disease and circulatory problems.

Not only are the health benefits of a standing desk overrated, but research has also found that standing still for long periods of time can increase the risk of certain types of circulatory problems, such as varicose veins or deep vein thrombosis, due to blood pooling underneath. your body.

Their findings refute previous research suggesting the benefits of standing instead of sitting.

Ahmadi said that’s because most past studies only looked at short-term changes or “soft endpoints” such as improvements in blood pressure and insulin sensitivity.

But Ahmadi’s team took a long-term view.

“What we found when we looked at the risk of hospitalization was that standing alone did not reduce the risk for these diseases.”

He said standing is not enough to improve cardiovascular health, you need to get the body moving.

“This is often done most efficiently with activities that move us, such as ambulation and walking.

“These activities don’t necessarily have to mean going to the gym and exercising for 60 minutes every day.

“We can improve our cardiovascular health just by doing our daily activities, and this can be like housework or even gardening outdoors.

“Anything that gets us going gets us out.”

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