According to a recent study, intense or moderate physical activity can considerably reduce the risk of death, which increases with daily routines of 10 hours of sedentary lifestyle.
A sedentary lifestyle is one of the ills of the nineteenth century, something that with teleworking and the pandemic has increased causing us to spend more time sitting in front of a computer and not even have to get up to go to the office.
Scientists had already warned us of the risks of sitting for so long, but now a recent study sheds light on what we could do to counteract them and it turns out that, for our fortune, it is not necessary to join a gym or spend long hours exercising. although this will always be recommended.
In contrast, a recent study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine states that 30 to 40 minutes of sweating exercise a day can counteract up to 10 hours of sitting.
What the experts recommend is not to go easy and at least ensure 40 minutes of our day to perform “physical activity of moderate to vigorous intensity”, although they emphasize that any amount of exercise, even simply standing for a long time, it can be helpful to some extent.
” Inactive individuals who engage in 30 to 40 minutes of moderate to vigorous-intensity physical activity, the association between a high sedentary time and the risk of death is not significantly different from those with a low amount of sedentary time,” write the researchers in their study.
To reach these conclusions they are based on a meta-analysis of new previous studies involving a total of 44,370 people from four different countries who were monitored with some type of exercise tracker.
When comparing the results of the studies, it was found that in the most sedentary people the risk of death was higher, something that progressively decreased in those who dedicated more time to intensive or moderate exercise.
That is, activities such as cycling, brisk walks, jogging, playing sports, or in general doing activities that activate sweating in our bodies, can make us live a longer and healthier life, reducing the risk of death which It is elevated as we remain seated longer and with a sedentary lifestyle.
One point to keep in mind is that this meta-analysis used only previous studies whose data were collected by portable devices that monitored the participants, not in self-reported data by the individuals studied, thus increasing the reliability of the sources and allowing more accurate conclusions to be drawn.
Along with the study, the journal specialized in sport and medicine published the 2020 World Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior, which were issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) and prepared by 40 scientists from six continents.
“These guidelines are very timely, given that we are in the middle of a global pandemic, which has confined people indoors for long periods and has encouraged an increase in sedentary behavior,” says the researcher of physical activity and health of the Emmanuel Stamatakis population of the University of Sydney in Australia, in statements collected by the portal Science Alert.
