Excessive sitting time is associated with increased risk of heart disease

Research shows that spending more time sitting, lying down, or lying down during the day can increase your risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and death. jackthe flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology and presented at the 2024 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions. Sedentary behavior of approximately 10.5 hours or more per day was significantly associated with future heart failure (HF) and cardiovascular disease. (CV) Deaths even among people meeting recommended physical activity levels.

Our findings indicate that 10.6 hours per day is a potentially important threshold associated with increased heart failure and cardiovascular mortality, and that reducing sedentary time to reduce cardiovascular risk is important. is supported. Sitting or lying down too much can have a negative impact on your heart health, even if you're an active person. ”

Shaan Khurshid, MD, MPH, cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and co-senior author of this study

Physical inactivity is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Current guidelines recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week to promote heart health. However, research experts say that exercise is only a small part of total daily activity, and current guidelines suggest that physical activity is a much larger part of daily activity, despite evidence that it is directly associated with CVD risk. It says it does not provide specific guidance on sedentary behavior.

This study investigated sedentary time, which is associated with greatest CVD risk, and found that sedentary behavior and physical activity are associated with increased risk of atrial fibrillation (AF), heart failure (HF), myocardial infarction (MI), and CV death. We investigated how it affects sexuality.

Of the 89,530 UK Biobank study participants, the average age was 62 years and 56.4% were female. Participants submitted data captured over seven days using a three-axis wrist-worn accelerometer. The average sitting time per day was 9.4 hours.

After an average follow-up of 8 years, 3,638 (4.9%) developed atrial fibrillation, 1,854 (2.1%) developed heart failure, 1,610 (1.84%) developed sexual myocardial infarction, and 846 people (0.94%) died from CV causes.

The effects of sedentary time vary by outcome. The risks of AF and MI steadily increased over time without significant changes. For heart failure and cardiovascular mortality, the increase in risk was minimal until sitting time exceeded approximately 10.6 hours per day, at which point the risk increased significantly, indicating a behavioral “threshold” effect. I did.

Among study participants who met the recommended 150 minutes or more of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, the effect of sedentary behavior on the risk of AF and MI was significantly reduced, but the effect of sedentary behavior on increased risk of death from HF and CV was significantly reduced. The impact remained significant.

“Future guidelines and public health efforts should emphasize the importance of reducing sedentary time,” Khurshid said. “Avoiding more than 10.6 hours per day may be a realistic minimum goal for improving heart health.”

In an accompanying editorial comment, Charles Eaton, MD, M.A., chair of family medicine at Brown University, says that the use of wearable accelerometers significantly overestimates self-reported physical activity and underestimates sedentary behavior. It has been shown that there is.

Eaton said replacing as little as 30 minutes of excess sitting time each day with any type of physical activity can reduce heart health risks. Adding moderate to vigorous activity reduced the risk of heart failure by 15% and cardiovascular mortality by 10%, and even mild activity made a difference by reducing the risk of heart failure by 6% and cardiovascular mortality by 9%. Ta.

“This study adds to the growing body of evidence that there is a strong link between sedentary behavior and cardiovascular health,” said Harlan M. Krumholtz, MD, SM, Harold. said H. Hines Jr., professor of medicine at Yale University and editor-in-chief of the magazine. jack. “These findings strongly suggest that we need to mobilize people to improve their health.”

This study has some limitations, including not knowing details about where or why people sit or lie down for long periods of time, such as at work, which may differentially impact CV risk. . Wrist-worn accelerometers have imperfect posture detection and can misclassify standing time as sitting time. Longer monitoring periods may provide more accurate data about activity habits and patterns.

Other limitations include potential confounders in the study results, selection bias, inability to measure the true effect of reallocating sedentary time to other activities, and wrist-worn accelerometers and thigh-based Examples include differences between the data of the accelerometers that are worn.