This week, a bleak US study found that exercise doesn’t counteract the effects of sitting down all day.

The study, involving women aged between 63 and 99, was a serious downer for office workers and train drivers.

Because they indeed sit down all day, often for more than 30 minutes at a time.

Hello cancer! Type 2 diabetes! Heart disease! 

Please don’t panic. In good news for office workers, research from the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre seems to get people strapped to their chairs off the hook.

You just need to do a lot more walking than you’re probably doing in your free time.

How much walking?

In a study involving 72,000 people, the researchers found that every additional step up to around 10,000 steps a day was linked to:

• a 39 per cent reduced risk of death
• a 21 per cent reduced risk of cardiovascular disease.

The benefits were gained “regardless of how much remaining time was spent [being] sedentary”.

In 1965, a Japanese clock company invented a pedometer named the Manpo-kei, which means “10,000 steps meter”.

This was the beginning of the idea that 10,000 steps was the minimum number of steps people needed to take each day for the sake of their health.

Over the years many people have whinged that it’s too difficult to achieve. Scientists have complained about the lack of evidence that 10,000 is the magic number.

Now, if the Sydney study is correct, from 9000 to 10,000 steps is the sweet spot for people who need it most – those of the sedentary persuasion.

The one difficulty is people who work long days finding the time.

Not a ‘get out of jail free card’

Lead author and research fellow, Dr Matthew Ahmadi, in a prepared statement, said:

“This is by no means a get out of jail card for people who are sedentary for excessive periods of time. However, it does hold an important public health message that all movement matters, and that people can and should try to offset the health consequences of unavoidable sedentary time by upping their daily step count.”

The fact is, sitting for 10 hours or so a day is profoundly damaging.

Aside from an increased risk of heart disease and cancer, there’s also stroke, obesity, deep-vein thrombosis and metabolic disease laying in wait.

A 2016 study of data from 54 countries concluded that sitting – just sitting for too long – was responsible for 4 per cent of all deaths.

In 2021, research found that getting up and walking around for three minutes every 30 minutes is enough to reduce some of the most harmful effects of staying glued to your desk.

This was the finding of a practical study carried out in a real-world office setting, but it can serve as a useful guide for people working long hours at home.

Maybe the answer overall is to embrace both findings. Get up every half hour, and then in the evening, go for a long walk.

The study

The new study used data on 72,174 individuals (average age 61; 58 per cent female) from the UK Biobank study.

Participants had worn an accelerometer device on their wrist for seven days to measure their physical activity. The accelerometer data were used to estimate their daily step count and the time spent sedentary. That is, sitting or lying down while awake.

The research team then followed the health trajectory of the participants by linking hospitalisation data and death records.

A piece in The Conversation  also considers the Sydney study and the US study (which found that no amount of exercise will offset a sedentary lifestyle).