How many hours of seating may increase the risk of premature death?

How many hours of

seating may increase the risk of premature death?

A new study by the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) confirmed that

sitting for long periods daily is detrimental to our health.

In the study :

women's participation 5856, aged between 63 and 99, were initially

asked to wear a hip activity monitor for 7 days. Their cases were followed

for a decade, during which 1733 participants died.

The researchers used artificial intelligence to find out how much time the entries

sat by monitoring the activity, and then linked that to the risk of death.

The data showed that :

participants who spent more than 11 hours sitting daily were 57% more likely to die

during the study period than women who sat less than 9 and a half hours a day.

The risk of :

1. early death persisted
2. even as more moderate to
3. strong exercise took place.

This contrasts with an Australian study that found that walking about 9,000

and 10,500 steps a day reduces the risk of premature death

even for people who sit too much.

The researchers say that

• installing activity monitors on the hip in the University of

• California study and on the wrist in the Australian study

• which may lead to different estimates of sitting time

• may explain the contradictory results.

The Australian study also did not use any special program in activity control

data to determine participants' parking or seating times.

For example :

• if a participant stays still for half an hour, this will be counted as half

• an hour of sitting, meaning the Australian study underestimated

• the time participants spend sitting.

UC study evidence seems to be better, highlighting the need to limit seating.

The World Health Organization's current guidance also supports this

recommending that adults should limit the amount of 

seating time and divide long seating periods.