With out query, inactivity is unhealthy for us. Extended sitting is persistently linked to increased dangers of heart problems and loss of life. The plain response to this frightful destiny is to not sit—transfer. Even a number of moments of train can have advantages, research recommend. However in our trendy instances, sitting is tough to keep away from, particularly on the workplace. This has led to a variety of methods to get ourselves up, together with the rise of standing desks. If you must be tethered to a desk, no less than you are able to do it whereas in your toes, the pondering goes.
Nonetheless, research on whether or not standing desks are helpful have been sparse and typically inconclusive. Moreover, extended standing can have its personal dangers, and information on work-related sitting has additionally been blended. Whereas the ultimate verdict on standing desks continues to be unclear, two research out this yr supply a few of the most nuanced proof but concerning the potential advantages and dangers of working in your toes.
Take a Seat
For years, research have pointed to standing desks bettering markers for cardiovascular and metabolic well being, equivalent to lipid ranges, insulin resistance, and arterial flow-mediated dilation (the power of arteries to widen in response to elevated blood move). But it surely’s unclear how important these enhancements are to averting unhealthy well being outcomes, equivalent to coronary heart assaults. One 2018 evaluation instructed the advantages is likely to be minor.
And there are honest causes to be skeptical about standing desks. For one, standing—like sitting—will not be shifting. If a scarcity of motion and train is the foundation downside, standing nonetheless would not be an answer.
But, whereas sitting and standing can arguably be mixed into the one class of “stationary,” some researchers have argued that not all sitting is identical. In a 2018 place paper revealed within the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medication, two well being specialists argued that the hyperlink between poor well being and sitting may come right down to the precise populations being examined and “the particular contribution” of “sitting time at house, for instance, the ‘sofa potato impact.’”
The 2 researchers—emeritus professors David Rempel, previously on the College of California, San Francisco, and Niklas Krause, previously of UCLA—pointed to a number of research wanting particularly at occupational sitting time and poor well being outcomes, which have arrived at blended outcomes. As an illustration, a 2013 evaluation didn’t discover a hyperlink between sitting at work and heart problems. Although the examine did recommend a hyperlink to mortality, the hyperlink was solely amongst girls. There was additionally a 2015 examine on about 36,500 employees in Japan who have been adopted for a median of 10 years. That examine discovered that there was no hyperlink between mortality and sitting time amongst salaried employees, professionals, and individuals who labored at house companies. Nonetheless, there was a hyperlink between mortality and sitting amongst individuals who labored in farming, forestry, and fishing industries.
Nonetheless, regardless of some murkiness within the specifics, more moderen research proceed to show up a hyperlink between whole extended sitting—wherever that sitting happens—and poor well being outcomes, significantly heart problems. This has stored up curiosity in standing desks in places of work, the place folks do not at all times have the posh of frequent motion breaks. And this, in flip, has stored researchers on their toes to attempt to reply whether or not there’s any profit to standing desks.
