Mass General Brigham researchers discover that sitting too much can hurt your heart

Working out a workout after a long day sitting at a desk may not be enough to compensate for the effects that sedentary behavior has on your heart.

Investigator from General Brigham MassExcessive sedentary behavior (low-energy-consuming wakeful activities such as sitting, lying down, and lying down, not including nighttime sleep time) is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, especially heart failure and cardiovascular death. , and these risks can be significantly reduced by replacing sedentary time with other activities.

They also found that meeting guideline levels of moderate to vigorous physical activity may not be enough to reduce cardiovascular risk when sedentary.

their results are american university journal cardiology.

“Many of us spend most of our waking days sitting. There's a lot of research supporting the importance of physical activity, but more than just a vague idea that too much sitting may be harmful. “We knew very little about the potential effects of overcrowding,” said the first author. Dr. Ejimaka Ajufo, He is a cardiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a founding member of the Massachusetts General Brigham Health System.

“Even those who were physically active were still at risk of being sedentary. Many of us are sedentary and think that if we go outside and exercise at the end of the day we will find balance. So this is important,” Ajufo said. But it turns out it's more complicated than that. ”

Ajufo's team, which included Brigham General researchers from across Massachusetts, analyzed one week's worth of activity tracking data from 89,530 people in the UK Biobank prospective cohort.

They looked at the association between the amount of time spent sitting each day and the future risk of four common cardiovascular diseases: atrial fibrillation, heart attack, heart failure, and death from cardiovascular disease. The research team used machine learning algorithms to classify sedentary behavior.

Researchers found that sedentary behavior is associated with an increased risk of all four types of heart disease, and that sedentary behavior of more than 10.6 hours a day (not including sleep) can lead to increased risk of heart failure and cardiovascular disease. A significantly increased risk of death of 40 to 60 percent was observed.

Many of the negative effects of sedentary behavior persisted even among those who achieved the guideline-recommended 150 minutes or more of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week.

For example, the study found that the risk of atrial fibrillation and heart attack can be largely eliminated by physical activity, but the excess risk of heart failure and cardiovascular death can only be partially offset by physical activity. .

“Our data supports the idea that it is always better to sit less and move more to reduce the risk of heart disease. “This supports the idea that this is particularly important for reducing the risk of vascular death,” said the co-senior author. Shaan Khurshid, MD, MPH; He is an electrophysiologist and faculty member of the Telemakos and Irene DeMoras Family Foundation Cardiac Arrhythmia Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and a founding member of the Massachusetts General Brigham Health System.

The research team hopes these findings will inform future guidelines and public health efforts. They hope for future prospective studies to test the effectiveness of public health interventions that help people reduce the amount of time they spend sedentary and see how this affects cardiovascular health. There is.

Next, they plan to expand this study to investigate the effects of sedentary behavior on a variety of other diseases over time.

“While exercise is important, avoiding excessive sitting also appears to be separately important,” said the co-senior authors. Patrick Eleanor, MD; He is a cardiologist and co-director of the Corrigan-Minnehan Heart Center at Massachusetts General Hospital.

“Our hope is that this research can empower patients and healthcare professionals by providing another way to leverage exercise behavior to improve cardiovascular health.”

Patrick Eiliner, MD, PhD

author: Other authors of Mass General Brigham include Timothy W. Churchill, J. Sawalha Guse, and Krishna G. Aragam. Other authors include Shinwan Kany and Joel T. Rämö.

Disclosure: Krishna G. Alagam has received sponsored research support from Sarepta Therapeutics and Bayer AG. He also reported on collaborative research with the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research. Patrick T. Ellinor has received sponsored research support from Bayer AG, IBM Research, Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer, and Novo Nordisk. He also served on the advisory board and consulted for Bayer AG.

Funding: The researcher received a John S. Ladue Memorial Fellowship in Cardiovascular Medicine or Vascular Biology, a Walter Benjamin Fellowship from the German National Institutes of Health (521832260), a Research Fellowship from the Sigrid Juselius Foundation, and a National Institutes of Health (K23HL159262- 01A1, 1K08HL153937, RO1HL092577, R01HL157635, and K23HL169839-01), American Heart Association (19AMFDP34990046, 862032, 18SFRN34230127, 961045, and 2023CDA1050571), President and Harvard University Fellow (5KL2TR002542-04), and the European Union (MAESTRIA 965286).

Cited paper: Ajufo E, Others. “Sedentary behavior measured with accelerometers and future cardiovascular disease” Journal of the American College of CardiologyDOI: 10.1016/j.jacc.2024.10.065