FAT? You know that being parked at your desk all day can expand your waistline. But it may be harming your health more than you realize. By Nicole Catanese on Jul 28, 2014 Share: It doesnt take a rocket scientist to understand how calorie-burning works. When you move youre using fuel (a.k.a. calories). And when youre sitting at your computer, youre not. But new research has revealed alarming evidence that countless hours spent slumped in your office desk chair (albeit ergonomically correct) can have profound physiological effects on your body, wreaking havoc far beyond the simple calories-in, calories-out equation. Your body isnt built to sit, says James Levine, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, and a leading advocate of the treadmill desk. When you sit for a long time, the receptors on the muscles in your body that are inactive—lower back, buttocks, and legs, torso, abdominals, shoulders, and arms—start to change and become more resistant to insulin, causing blood sugar and triglyceride levels to rise. It also causes your metabolism to plummet, which inevitably leads to weight gain. Studies have linked prolonged sitting with health issues down the line too, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, back pain, and depression. It causes not only the machinery of your muscles to stop working the way theyre designed to but also, essentially, a systemwide failure, he says. If youve been sitting for an hour, youve been sitting for too long.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 07:56:46 +0000