Study recommends being physically active each day to offset risks of desk work

Researchers recommend that people with desk jobs do an hour of physical activity each day to reduce the health risks associated with an inactive lifestyle.

The paper, published in The Lancet, used data from 13 studies that involved over a million people in total.

Participants from these studies were grouped by how active they were. The group deemed to be least active were those doing less than 5 minutes of activity per day, and the most active group did 60-75 minutes each day.

Scientists then tracked these participants for periods varying between 2 and 14 years to see if there were any patterns associated with health and the level of physical activity a person does.

Overall, they found that people who sat for 8 hours per day but were also physically active had a much lower risk of an early death than those who sat for fewer hours a day but were not physically active.

Based on these findings, the head researcher of the study recommends that people who have to sit for long periods of time at work or on a commute try to be physically active each day. While an hour of activity is ideal, any level of extra activity could help to reduce a person’s risk.

Read the original news story. 

Read the full article. 

Find out more about the Healthy Lungs for Life campaign, which highlights the link between physical activity and lung health.