Americans are at higher risk for disease due to their high prevalence of sitting jobs. Sitting is very deleterious to your health. During sitting there is a lack of muscle contractions which reduces blood flow. The more you sit, the worse the health consequences. Every hour you sit decreases your life expectancy by 2 hours! Those who sit the most have a double risk of diabetes and heart disease. Prolonged sitting (6 hours uninterrupted) will counteract the positive effects of 1 hour of exercise! Those with the longest daily sitting where 8 years older biologically. Excessive sitting causes 3.8 % of all-cause deaths. It is truly lethal.

Ideally you should sit no more than 50 minutes if 1 hour. Sitting should be limited to 3 hours a day. Standing for 10 minutes is 1 way to avoid some of these consequences. In the next issue, another way to avoid the consequences of sitting.