More than 10 hours a day of sedentary lifestyle damages the heart, even if you exercise

Spending too much time sitting can harm heart health, even in active people, according to a study that associates more than 10 and a half hours a day of sitting. sedentary lifestyle with increased risk of heart failure and cardiovascular death, even in those who exercise regularly.

This is the main conclusion of a work with 89,530 participants that is published in JACC, the journal of the American College of Cardiology, and presented at the 2024 scientific sessions of the American Heart Association. Spending more time sitting, reclining or lying down during the day can be bad for your heart.

Insufficient exercise is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease, recalls a statement from the aforementioned college, which indicates that current guidelines recommend more than 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week to promote heart health.

However, study experts say exercise is only a small part of total daily activity, and current guidelines do not provide specific guidance on sedentary behavior, which represents a much larger part of daily activity.

This research examined the amount of sedentary time in which the risk of cardiovascular disease is highest and explored how this behavior and physical activity jointly impact the odds of atrial fibrillation, heart failure, myocardial infarction, and mortality.

Among the 89,530 UK biobank participants, the average age was 62 years and 56.4% were women. These sent data from a wrist triaxial accelerometer that captured movement for seven days; The average daily sedentary time was 9.4 hours.

After a mean follow-up of eight years, 3,638 individuals (4.9%) developed atrial fibrillation, 1,854 (2.1%) heart failure, 1,610 (1.84%) myocardial infarction, and 846 (0.94%) died.

The effects of sedentary time varied depending on the outcome. For atrial fibrillation and myocardial infarction, the risk increased steadily over time without much change.

In the case of heart failure and cardiovascular mortality, the increase in risk was minimal until sedentary time exceeded 10.6 hours per dayat which time the risk increased significantly, “which shows a threshold effect.”

In participants who met the recommended 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity or more, the effects of sedentary behavior on the risks of atrial fibrillation and myocardial infarction were substantially reduced, but the effects on the increased risk of heart failure and Mortality remained important.

“Future guidelines and public health efforts should emphasize the importance of reducing sedentary time,” said Shaan Khurshid, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and co-senior author of the study. “Avoiding more than 10.6 hours a day may be a realistic minimum goal for improving heart health.”

In an accompanying editorial comment, Charles Eaton of the department of Family Medicine at Brown University said that the use of wearable accelerometers has shown that exercise is significantly overestimated by self-report and sedentary behavior is underestimated.

Eaton noted that replacing just 30 minutes a day of excessive sitting time with any type of physical activity can reduce heart health risks.