In recent years, standing has been touted as a remedy to a sedentary lifestyle, especially for desk workers who spend long hours seated at their screens.
But a new study from researchers in Australia and the Netherlands has found standing for long periods of time might not be much better than sitting after all – and actually comes with its own life-threatening risks.
Just under seven years of data from 83,013 adults were collected as part of the UK Biobank, using wrist-worn devices to track their activity, sleep, and sedentary time. The amount of time individuals spent standing and sitting was matched with incidences of cardiovascular diseases – coronary heart disease, heart failure and stroke – as well as circulatory diseases – low blood pressure on standing, varicose veins, chronic venous insufficiency, and venous ulcers.
The researchers found no association between time spent standing and the risk of cardiovascular disease, suggesting standing desks and similar work postures might not be enough to stave off the health problems associated with sitting around.
University of Sydney population health scientist Matthew Ahmadi suggests this might be because many studies in support of standing were based on 'soft endpoints' like improved blood pressure, insulin sensitivity, and triglyceride levels.
His team's investigation, on the other hand, focused on 'hard clinical endpoints' – hospitalizations or death from these diseases – and found that whether people were seated or standing for the long periods of time they spent stationary didn't really make a difference to cardiovascular outcomes.
"More time spent sitting didn't necessarily lower a person's risk of cardiovascular disease, nor did it increase the risk," Ahmadi says. "It was a null finding. But what it did do was actually increase their risk of circulatory diseases."
Standing for more than two hours a day increased that risk by 11 percent for every extra half hour, which is bad news for retail workers and the standing desk industry.
Not that sitting is much better either: beyond 10 hours of daily sitting time, every extra hour spent on your butt increased circulatory disease risk by 26 percent.
This suggests that a lack of walking or other movement while either sitting or standing could be driving the risk of orthostatic circulatory disease, the authors write.
Though the study's sample size is unrivaled, it's worth noting that as an observational study the research can't prove that standing or sitting cause any of these diseases. It does, however, add to the avalanche of research on the importance of moving your body.
Ahmadi says the real take-home from this research is that standing, by itself, should not be considered a cure-all for the ailments of sedentary, seat-bound lifestyles.
"Standing needs to be mixed in with other forms of activity that gets the body moving," he says.
"We're not seeing the risk of orthostatic diseases… when someone's walking around. We're seeing it mainly when they're standing stationary, standing still, because you get that blood pooling in the lower extremities."
This research was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
