We’ve long known that a sedentary lifestyle isn’t healthy, but if women in particular needed more incentive to get up and move, a recent study by American Cancer Society researchers gives it to them.
According to the study, women who spend six hours or more a day sitting – whether it’s on the couch or in an office chair – have a greater risk of getting cancer. Women who spend a large part of their day sitting are 10 percent more likely to get cancer than their counterparts who sit for three hours or less daily, researchers reported in the study published in the June issue of the medical periodical Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.
Among the cancers found to occur more in that group of women were multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, ovarian and more aggressive forms of breast cancer.
In the study’s summary, lead researcher Dr. Alpa Patel, who serves as a strategic director for the American Cancer Society (ACS), wrote that the same amount of time spent sitting wasn’t connected to greater cancer diagnoses for men. The link to increased occurrence in women was puzzling, and “needed further study,” Patel said.
The study wasn’t meant to reveal a causal relationship, he added, but merely a link.
The study analyzed information from 77,462 women and 69,260 men over a span of roughly 17 years, from 1992-2009. None had been diagnosed with cancer at the start of the study. By the end, 12,236 women and 18,555 men had been diagnosed.
Among women who reported sitting for at least six hours per day, there was a 65 percent greater risk for multiple myeloma, a 43 percent increased risk for ovarian cancer, and a 10 percent increase in invasive breast cancer. There was a 10 percent greater risk for any cancer diagnosis at all, over women who were more active.
To battle this ominous link, ACS recommends adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous activity a week. If your job keeps you chained (figuratively) to your desk for long periods of time, the group has suggestions to meet activity goals.
Some of those tips include standing during conference calls or making shorter meetings “standing meetings.” Aside from that, the group offers these pointers:
- Pass up that open parking space close to the door, and pick one further away. It may only be a difference of a few yards, but the extra walk will do you good.
- Give yourself a reminder to get away from your desk. Set the timer on your watch or mobile phone to nudge you into getting up for a 1-2 minute standing or walking break every hour. Get up and walk to the restroom. Get a cup of coffee. Walk over to chat at the water cooler – anything to use your lower muscles which have been unused the rest of the hour.
- Eschew the elevator. Take the stairs.
- Fit in a quick workout during lunch even if you can’t make a trip to the gym. Take a walk around the block, do some quick stretches in the break room or even some calf-crunches in the hallway. It doesn’t have to be a complicated workout or take long. Just get the blood moving.
The bottom line is to avoid sitting for long periods of time, said Patel.
“Time spent sitting is distinctly different from accumulating too little physical activity and may have independent deleterious effects,” he wrote in the study’s summary.
