If you sit all day at work, you may want to pay attention to the first-ever United Kingdom guidelines designed to curb health risks of too much cumulative sitting time.
The guidelines, prepared by a panel of international experts, recommend at least two hours of light activity and standing during working hours for all office workers whose jobs are predominantly desk-based.
The experts claim that minor changes in lifestyle can help prevent a host of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), chiefly diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, which are affecting younger people. "Regularly breaking up seated-based work with standing-based work is likely to be more achievable than targeted exercise," the guideline, published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, states.
It adds that employers should encourage staff to embrace other healthy behaviour, such as cutting down on drinking and smoking, eating a nutritious diet, and alleviating stress.
Dr Vijay Viswanathan of MV Hospital for Diabetes said the problem of NCD is turning into a health and economic crisis. "Due to current lifestyles, people in their 20s and 30s are suffering from diabetes and hypertension, which were generally observed in people aged over 50. These youngsters are usually off their beds and off to work, where they stay seated most of the time," he said.
"Offices must introduce workouts to their sedentary lifestyles. Besides, their work should, as much as possible, entail moving about for basic communications rather than messages and emails," he added.
Even a leisurely walk can help you burn more calories and may lead to weight loss and increased energy, the doctors said.
They added that being seated for long hours leads to obesity and it also effects the bowel movement.
The incidence of heart attack in the young has also gone up. "Earlier, heart attacks were only common among people aged between their 50's -60's. Today we have patients aged between 20-25 who suffers from cardiac arrest and coronary heart disease" said Suresh Rao, head of the department of cardiac critical care at Fortis Malar.
Experts say when we sit for long hours without a break our muscles burn less fat and blood flows more sluggishly .This leads to clogging of the heart by fatty acids.
"People with the most sedentary lifestyle are twice at risk to have cardio-vascular diseases than the physically active ones," said a senior doctor.
He added that lifestyle changes such as regular exercise, controlling obesity , reducing smoking and alcohol consumption can help delay onset of heart disease.
A review of data from the American Cancer Society's Cancer Prevention Study II (CPS-II) concluded that sitting for six or more hours daily can elevate the chances of cancer and other major diseases even if one maintains a healthy weight.
Source: THE TIME OFINDIA
