Are you sitting down? Well, don’t — it is even worse for you than you think
Researchers have found that high levels of activity do not mitigate the ‘harmful effects of sitting for extended periods’
Sitting too much is linked to thinning in a brain region critical to memory in middle-aged and older adults‚ a new study shows.The researchers also found that high levels of activity do not mitigate the "harmful effects of sitting for extended periods".Being very sedentary is bad for your metabolism and heart‚ raising the risk of heart disease‚ diabetes and early death‚ much like smoking‚ previous research has proved.Researchers from the University of California in Los Angeles enrolled 35 people aged 45 years to 75 years in the study and asked them on average how many hours they spent sitting in the previous week and how active they were. They did not ask them if they took breaks during their sitting.They did high-resolution MRI scans on each volunteer to look at the medial temporal lobe (MTL)‚ a brain region involved in making new memories. Thinning in this region precedes cognitive decline and dementia."Sedentary behaviour is a significant predictor of thinning of the MTL and phys...
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