Can Sitting Around Cause… Cancer?

Yes, researchers have found a significant link between inactivity and some scary diseases, including cancer. So stand up, and head for the road to health and fitness.

Say you have done your one hour of exercise for the day. You feel great! Time to hit the computer, answer all the pending emails, surf the web, peek in at social media, just hang out at your desk. You have earned it, right? Wrong!

Exercise cannot make up for sitting

You heard that right. Exercise is good. Sitting around is bad. So bad, that it can overwhelm everything else. Even exercise.

So whether you exercise regularly or not, too much sitting puts you at a higher risk of developing multiple diseases, and even of dying, according to a recent study from Canada.

We are less active these days

Many studies have shown that over the last 100 years or so, we have been spending less energy while at work. And with the advent of technology, household chores have also become less physically demanding. Can you remember the last time you chopped wood for your Chicago apartment?

Analysis of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics data from the 1960s to 2008 shows that men on an average are burning 142 fewer calories at the workplace these days, while women are burning 124 fewer calories. No wonder our health and fitness has suffered.

The jobs requiring significant physical labor are slowly being phased out, and there is an ongoing, significant increase in the number of mostly sedentary office and desk jobs.

Work is more sedentary

The average person spends more than half of his or her day in sedentary activities now, such as sitting, working at a computer, driving, or watching TV. A study published in 2012 evaluated office workers, call center workers, and customer service employees in Australia. More than three-fourths of their time (77%) was spent in sedentary activities. For half of this duration, the periods of inactivity lasted 20 minutes or longer continuously. And this trend does not appear to be limited to Australia alone.

So what is the problem?

When you are standing upright, you burn almost twice as many calories as when you are sitting down. The upright posture brings multiple muscles into play, and helps make your muscles and bones stronger. Prolonged sitting creates problems.

The ‘sitting disease’

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1993 evaluated Harvard alumni and looked at their activity levels. Compared with active men, sedentary men had a 36% higher risk of dying from coronary heart disease.

Watching TV

This is usually a sedentary activity, and is often used as a surrogate for sitting time in studies.

An Australian study evaluating the TV watching habits of 8800 men and women was published in the journal Circulation  in January 2010. The researchers found that compared to the people who watched TV for fewer than 2 hours a day, the people who watched TV for more than 4 hours a day had an 80% higher risk of dying from heart disease.

One could say that perhaps the heavy TV watchers were snacking on unhealthy food, but their higher risk held up even when the researchers made adjustments for diet, calorie intake, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and smoking.

To put matters in perspective, the average American watches TV for more than 3 hours a day.

Women and physical activity

Women have a greater risk reduction from exercise than men.

Another Australian study published in May 2014 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine evaluated risk factors for heart disease in women at various ages. They found that after the age of 30 years, physical inactivity increased the risk of heart disease in women much more than high blood pressure, cigarette smoking or obesity.

In particular, they noted that physically inactive middle-aged women had a 33% higher risk of heart disease.

WHO data

The World Health Organization states that 3.2 million people die every year as a consequence of physical inactivity.

This makes physical inactivity the 4^th leading risk factor for death worldwide.

Recent data

January 2015 saw another study reviewing the ill effects of sitting around. This study was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Canadian researchers performed a meta-analysis of 41 previous trials linking inactivity with disease. They concluded that sitting for long periods of time on a daily basis led to a 15-20% higher risk of dying prematurely from any cause. It was also associated with a 15-20% increase in the risk of developing heart disease, or dying of heart disease, as well as developing or dying from cancer.

In their analysis, prolonged sedentary behavior was associated with a 90% increase in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

They also noted a significant link between inactivity and breast, colon, uterine, and ovarian cancer.

All of these ill effects persisted after adjusting for the effects of regular exercise.

So exercise cannot really override the harmful effects of prolonged sitting.

What to do?

Do something, anything. Anything is better than doing nothing, or sitting around. Standing is better than sitting. Walking is better than standing.

There is a term called “Non-Exercise Physical Activity (NEPA),” which is the term used for any activity more intense than sitting around, but less intense than “traditional” exercise. A Swedish study published in October 2013 revealed that NEPA lowers the death rate from all causes.

Practical tips

• If you are watching TV, get up and move around as soon as a commercial comes on.
• If you are working on your computer, or working at a desk, set an alarm. Every half an hour, get up and walk around for a minute or more.
• If you get a phone call, stand up and walk around while talking.
• In an office setting, if your colleague is nearby, walk over to talk instead of sending an email.
• If possible, try to get a “standing desk.”
• Follow the guideline from the Public Health Agency of Canada. Sitting down, or activities involving a lot of sitting, like driving, computer work, or watching TV, should not make up more than 4-5 hours of a person’s day.

Save your own life

• The “sitting disease” is a risk factor for early death, on par with smoking.
• If more people spent fewer than 3 hours a day sitting, it would add 2 years to the average life expectancy in the USA.

What about you?

How many hours a day do you spend mostly sitting down? What strategies can you adopt to reduce this? I would love to hear from you!