If You Are Inactive For 10 Hours, This Health Risk Threatens You! / The Dangers Of Inactivity

Threshold of Risk

Shan Khoroushi, a cardiac electrophysiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, commented on this, saying that most people spend the majority of their day—about 10 hours on average—sitting. This is why it's important to better understand how sitting and overall sedentary behavior might impact health and whether these effects could be reduced with exercise and physical activity.

For this condition, it seems there is a "milestone" risk threshold at the 10.6-hour mark. Khoroushi explained that this means avoiding this level of sedentary behavior as much as possible may be crucial for reducing the risk of heart failure and cardiovascular mortality.Khoroushi is the senior author of a new study recently published in the "JACC" journal, a leading publication from the American College of Cardiology, which shows that sitting for just over 10.5 hours a day may be significantly linked to future heart failure and cardiovascular death, even among individuals who engage in the recommended 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity (MVPA) per week.

Cardiovascular disease is a major public health issue, and from many studies, we know that adequate exercise can be a powerful way to reduce the risk of future disease. For this reason, guidelines are clear that achieving at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week is an important goal. In contrast, the effects of sedentary behavior on cardiovascular diseases are much less understood. However, if it can be proven that avoiding excessive inactivity is also important, it would provide another tool to improve public health by modifying movement behaviors.

The Risks of Sedentary Behavior Cannot Be Compensated for by Exercise

Khoroushi and his team also found that for participants in the study who engaged in the recommended 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity (MVPA) per week or more, the risks of atrial fibrillation and heart attack related to their sedentary behavior were significantly reduced. However, performing the recommended weekly exercise did not reduce the risk of heart failure and cardiovascular death associated with a sedentary lifestyle.People who are more sedentary also tend to exercise less. Khoroushi explained that among those who met the recommended MVPA levels, the effects of sedentary behavior on atrial fibrillation and myocardial infarction risk were significantly reduced, suggesting that most or all of the additional risk related to sedentary behavior is tied to insufficient "moderate-intensity physical activity."

He added, however, that with respect to heart failure and cardiovascular mortality, a strong association with increased risk continued even among individuals who were generally sedentary but active. This suggests that excessive inactivity is associated with a higher risk, beyond the effects of insufficient physical activity for these two conditions. In other words, physical activity alone is not enough, and sedentary hours must be seriously reduced as well.