Sitting For Long Periods Of Time Increases Chance Of Dementia

More than half of adults in the US sit for over 9.5 hours a day, and they spend more than 80% of their free time sitting too. A study in the medical journal JAMA found that sitting too much might increase the risk of dementia.
“Sedentary” means having a lifestyle with little physical activity and lots of sitting. While we’ve known that sedentary lifestyles can cause health issues, this connection to dementia is new. So, if you want to lower your risk of dementia, get up and move around more!
Sedentary Linked To Mortality

Sedentary behavior has been linked to cardiometabolic disease and mortality, but its connection to dementia remained uncertain. That’s what scientists sought to discover in their research. They came across some interesting findings.
The Study

The research published in JAMA was thorough. A portion of the data used was from the UK Biobank, involving nearly 50,000 adults aged 60 or older residing in England, Scotland, or Wales. It tracked participants who wore wrist accelerometers and did not have dementia at the start, initiating follow-up from the time of accelerometer use.
Machine Learning

The wearable accelerometry data underwent analysis using a machine learning algorithm. The integration of machine learning enhanced the researcher’s ability to detect patterns and correlations within the dataset. It’s another example of how technology improves things.
10 Hours Of Sedentary Behavior

“The link between sedentary behavior was nonlinear, so that at lower amounts of sitting time, there was no significant increase in risk. After about 10 hours per day of sedentary behavior, risks increased significantly. Ten hours per day of sedentary behavior was associated with an 8 percent increase in risk of dementia and 12 hours per day was associated with a 63 percent increase in risk of dementia,” said study author David Raichlen. He’s a professor of biological sciences and anthropology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
Rapid Increase

“We were surprised to find that the risk of dementia begins to rapidly increase after 10 hours spent sedentary each day, regardless of how the sedentary time was accumulated,” said Gene Alexander. Gene is a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Arizona and Arizona Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.
Total Time Spent

Gene Alexander also said, “This suggests that it is the total time spent sedentary that drove the relationship between sedentary behavior and dementia risk, but importantly lower levels of sedentary behavior, up to around 10 hours, were not associated with increased risk.”
Total Time Sitting Is What Matters

They also discovered that, even if you mix in some activity here and there, it’s really the overall sitting time that matters when it comes to the risk of dementia. This came as a bit of a surprise since it doesn’t provide a clear explanation at face value.
Common Advice Is Wrong

Raichlen said, “Many of us are familiar with the common advice to break up long periods of sitting by getting up every 30 minutes or so to stand or walk around. We wanted to see if those types of patterns are associated with dementia risk. We found that once you take into account the total time spent sedentary, the length of individual sedentary periods didn’t really matter.”
Link Still Unclear

The authors said that the precise connection between sedentary lifestyles and dementia risk remains uncertain. They called for further research to discover more about this link.
Study Wasn’t Focused On Mechanisms

Raichlen said, “Our study was not focused on mechanisms but it is possible that reductions in cerebral blood flow or links between sedentary behavior and cardiometabolic disease factors may play a role in increased risk for dementia. Future work will focus on identifying these mechanisms.”
Previous Studies

The findings of this study support earlier research indicating that spending more time in sedentary activities correlates with lower cognitive performance. Previous research has also established a connection between increased physical activity and a reduced risk of dementia.
JAMA Study Complement’s Previous Studies

The authors of this study are quick to point out that this research does not prove causation between sedentary lifestyles and dementia. However, there is a correlation, and previous work supports the idea that there is a link between the two.
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