Don’t Get Too Comfy: Sitting Too Much Can Lead to Heart Disease

Taking it easy may take a toll on your heart. A new study published in the *Journal of the American College of Cardiology* found that too much sitting may lead to heart disease. The study looked at data from almost 90,000 people who wore an accelerometer for one week. It then looked for a correlation between a person’s time sitting still and their active time to the likelihood of experiencing atrial fibrillation, heart attacks, heart failure, and death from cardiovascular causes in the future. ## Videos by VICE “Many of us spend the majority of our waking day sitting,” lead study author Dr. Ezimamaka Ajufo said in a press release. “While there’s a lot of research supporting the importance of physical activity, we knew relatively little about the potential consequences of sitting too much beyond a vague awareness that it might be harmful.” ## How Much Sitting Is Too Much Sitting? Per the study, sedentary behavior “is broadly associated with future adverse” cardiovascular outcomes. The study found that there are “particularly prominent effects” on heart failure and cardiovascular mortality. In fact, there’s a 40 to 60 percent greater risk of heart failure and cardiovascular death observed when sedentary behavior exceeds 10.6 hours. “We would really recommend that as many people as possible avoid sitting more than 10.6 hours a day,” Ajufo told CNN. “That’s not a hard and fast threshold, but we think it’s a reasonable first step for guidelines and public health intervention.” Interestingly, the heart problems with extended sitting even apply to individuals who exercise, the study found. That means “moderate to vigorous physical activity” is not “sufficient to neutralize the harmful effects of sitting,” Ajufo told the outlet. “Sedentary risk remained even in people who were physically active, which is important because many of us sit a lot and think that if we can get out at the end of the day and do some exercise we can counterbalance it,” Ajufo said in the press release. “However, we found it to be more complex than that.”