The study found that the time spent sedentary, as opposed to the vigor of physical activity, was significantly and negatively correlated with a number of metabolic risk factors.
Pregnant women should avoid taking vitamin D supplements. Substitution appears to raise the risk of children developing a food allergy after birth. This was the conclusion drawn from a new survey carried out by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research and the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg in Germany which was published in the February issue of the medical journal Allergy.
...the pressure of heavy loads carried on the back have the potential to damage the soft tissues of the shoulder, causing microstructural damage to the nerves.
The result could be anything from simple irritation to diminished nerve capacity, ultimately limiting the muscles' ability to respond to the brain's signals, inhibiting movement of the hand and the dexterity of the fingers. In practice, this could impact functionality, reducing a worker's ability to operate machinery, compromise a soldiers' shooting response time, or limiting a child's writing or drawing capacity.The context of the study was soldiers carrying heavy backpacks (I am trying to find the actual study - might be this)
ConclusionThe results of this study suggest that there is an association between longer periods of time spent sitting down and diabetes and overall chronic disease in middle-aged Australian males.
Previous research has also found that the amount of time spent sitting down (‘sedentary behaviour’) is a risk factor for health, and that this risk factor is independent of the amount of time spent performing physical activity. This large study, which took into account several potential confounding variables, adds to this body of evidence. However, this study has limitations:
- Due to the cross-sectional study design, we cannot tell whether increased sitting time occurs before or after the development of chronic diseases.
- All of the data was self-reported by the men in the study. This means that it could have been affected by recall bias, or by under- or over-reporting.
- Not all people who were invited to complete the questionnaire did so. This means that there could have been a ‘selection bias’ in the recruitment of participants. This could have skewed the results either way – healthy people may have been more likely to respond or, alternatively, men more worried about their health may have been more likely to respond.
Despite these limitations, this study offers further support for the current physical activity recommendations for adults and the fact that physical inactivity can be bad for you.
- It should also be remembered that this study was performed in middle-aged Australian men, and it is unclear whether the results can be generalised to other populations.
