Prolonged daily sitting causes four per cent of deaths globally

New York, March 25: Sitting for more than three hours per day is responsible for nearly four percent of deaths in the world, shows an alysis of surveys from 54 countries around the world. Reducing sitting time to less than three hours per day would increase life expectancy by an average of 0.2 years, the researchers estimated. In order to properly assess the damaging effects of sitting, the study alysed behavioural surveys from 54 countries around the world and matched them with statistics on population size, actuarial table and overall deaths. Researchers found that sitting time significantly impacted all-cause mortality, accounting for approximately 433,000, or 3.8 percent, of all deaths across the 54 tions in the study. They also found that sitting had higher impact on mortality rates in the Western Pacific region, followed by European, Eastern Mediterranean, American, and Southeast Asian countries, respectively. While researchers found that sitting contributed to all-cause mortality, they also estimated the impact from reduced sitting time independent of moderate to vigorous physical activity. (IANS)