Yes, we are an obese society nowadays.  And, yes, we need to exercise more to insure both mental and physical health.

But, it also seems that, instead of sitting at our desk all day long (or being a couch potato mesmerized by the TV screen), if we just stand for two hours a day, we can cut our risk of diabetes.

Drs. GN Healy, EAH Winkler, N Owen, S Anuradha, and DW Dunstan  (School of Public Health, Queensland, Australia) examined 698 Australians and published their results (this is an early release- the link may change in the future) in the European Journal of the Heart.

The subjects all wore activity monitors (to determine posture and movement) for seven days.  Their biochemical markers (blood tests, waist circumference, weight, height), medical history, and dietary habits were also noted as part of the study.

These folks managed to spend more than ½ their waking hours sitting down (56%), 13% of their time walking or in more strenuous physical activity, and 31% of the time standing up. Given these baselines, the researchers examined what the biological markers would be effected when 2 hours of standing or walking replaced some of their sitting time each day.

Just by standing, their fasting glucose levels would drop by 2%, and HDL (high density lipoprotein) would be reduced by 0.6 mM (milliMolar).  Further changes include that their total cholesterol levels drop 6% and their triglyceride levels drop by 11%. But, other critical measures- such as body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, HbA1c, and LDL (low density lipoprotein) cholesterol were basically unchanged with the 2 hours of standing.

Now, if the subjects were to swap 2 hours of walking instead of sitting, their BMI dropped 11% and their waist circumference decreased by 7.5 cm- plus the other benefits listed above.  But, there still was to be no improvement in blood pressure or HbA1c levels.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I would have expected even better results with the addition of 14 hours of weekly exercise- even the light aerobic levels of walking.  Maybe a larger test population is needed.   After all, we are told that 150 minutes (that’s slightly more than 2 hours) is sufficient exercise for us to be healthy.

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