If you don’t exercise, at least stand up a lot!

William Atkins
Friday, 14 March 2008 21:30

Science - Health

A U.S. study has found that whether people exercise or not on a regular basis, simply standing up frequently throughout the day helps to increase the burning of fat and cholesterol within the body.        

American physiologist Marc Hamilton, from the Department of Biomedical Sciences, and fellow collaborators at the University of Missouri (Columbia) examined the effects of sedentary behaviors, such as long periods of sitting, on cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and death.

They based their study on previous health studies on daily sitting versus low-non-exercise activities (such as standing, pacing while talking on the telephone, walking to the water cooler, etc.).

They already knew that only five percent of Americans regularly exercise. Since almost all Americans do not even exercise the recommended thirty minutes per day, they decided to find how sitting all day versus sitting but standing periodically throughout the day helps or hurts health.

Hamilton’s team found that simply standing up, walking around while talking on the telephone, or other such non-exercise activities is better than remaining seated for long periods of time each and every day.

Their experiment studied the metabolic rates of rats, pigs, and humans.

The researchers found that the mechanisms in animal bodies that control the burning (metabolizing) of fat and cholesterol stop after a long periods of time sitting.

However, the simple act of standing up starts up the fat/cholesterol burning process. In fact, they found that these metabolic mechanisms are doubled over the rates while sitting.

Hamilton is quoted in Popular Science magazine (April 2008): “We need to focus on the fact that if sitting is a cause of disease in most people, then avoiding sitting is the most direct and simple recommendation to start with.”

They state important conclusions in their paper how health can be adversely affected by sitting for long periods.
Please read about them on the next page.