Friday, January 16, 2015

Standing Up

This one worries me a shade, given how much sitting we all do. Again from the year end edition of the Week Magazine:

Standing up can delay the effects of aging. Swedish researchers split a group of men and women into two groups: Half were given a moderate exercise program and told to sit less; the other half continued their normal lives. After six months, scientists measured the volunteers’ telomeres—caps on the ends of genes that generally shorten and fray with age. While the telomeres of subjects in the “normal” group had shortened, as expected, those in the active group had grown longer. Further tests confirmed that the biggest benefit didn’t come from exercise but from time spent simply standing up. Sedentary behavior, says co-author Mai-Lis Hellénius, could be the “new health hazard of our time.”

I happily built myself a stand up desk - I just wish I could get the crap off it so that I might use it.

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