Lesser Sitting Time May Reduce Type 2 Diabetes Risk

It has been known that exercise can help reduce the risk of diabetes in a majority of people who are prone to developing the disease. But it seems that it is not only exercise that will help reduce the risk. It seems that simply reducing sitting time daily may also help.

A study by researchers from the University of Leicester indicates that decreasing sitting time by 90 minutes daily and moving about often can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, especially in people who are at high risk of developing the disease.

Currently, people at risk of type 2 diabetes are told to do moderate to vigorous physical activity for at least 150 minutes. This study indicates that individuals should actually be advised to decrease sedentary time. This means that they should instead be advised to reduce the time they spent lying or sitting down.

The study was headed by Joseph Henson along with a team of researchers from Diabetes Research Unit of the University of Leicester as well as the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Loughborough Diet, Lifestyle and Physical Activity Biomedical Research Unit (BRU), UK. The research involved examining patients from two reports, namely the project STAND which involved 153 participants and the Walking Away from Diabetes study with 65 percent of the participants being men and with an average age of 64 years old.

In order to evaluate for MVPA or moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, the researchers used accelerometers. Breaks in sedentary time were considered as the transition from a sedentary to an active state. According to the results of the study in participants with known risk factors for type 2 diabetes, sedentary time was dangerously linked to 2 h glucose, HDL cholesterol as well as triacylglycerol. These were independent of other risk factors associated with the disease that were evaluated.

Even after controlling for MVPA and adiposity, the results remained significant. The results also show to be constant across the different age groups. This shows that the consequences of too much sedentary time apply to both young and old adults.

Source: Medical News Today
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