The humble act of sitting down just cant catch a break. Having already been linked to everything from bad posture to an overactive pancreas (wreaking havoc with insulin production and contributing to the countrys diabetes epidemic, the act of being sedentary for long periods of time is also associated non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), suggests a large-scale analysis of Korean adults. They found that both decreased rates of physical activity and extended periods of sitting down were linked with increased rates of NAFLD.
The findings underscore the need to move more and sit less at time when over half of an average adults daily routine is spent parked in a chair.
To gather the data, researchers examined the health records of almost 140,000 Koreans, roughly 40,000 of whom had NAFLD. They found that both decreased rates of physical activity and extended periods of sitting down were linked with increased rates of NAFLD.
Whats more, these two risk factors were independent of each other suggesting that increased physical activity may not offset prolonged periods of sitting, and that reduced sitting time may not make up for absence of physical activity.
And the association was consistent even in people with a low body mass index findings that surprised the researchers.
These data add to the strong and alarming evidence that sitting too much and moving too little has significant negative consequences for cardio-metabolic health, lifestyle medicine professor Michael I. Trenell said in a release.
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