Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sitting May Be Bad for Your Heart

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 124 posts

Re: Sitting May Be Bad for Your Heart

#111

Post by megaman22 »

jhayward wrote: post #87
sliverstorm wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always understood a lot of the industrial age jobs took a toll because of hazards & health issues. Occupational hazards like mine collapse & black lung, heavy machinery, fumes, and so forth. Are there many accounts of people simply being "all worn out" from hands on work? Are, e.g., lumberjacks who aren't injured, healthy or worn thin?

Go ask anyone aged 45 or over, who does physical labor - construction workers, electricians, farm workers, flatbed truck drivers. They will all tell you of the severe toll on their muscles, bones, and most specifically joints. Shoulders, elbows, hands, knees, and backs get to a point of being functionally disabled. So, yes, physical labor, even with full OSHA support, will wear your body out. Alongside all those stru…

My dad is a logger and was a mechanic; he's almost 61 and "retired" for two years. He thrashes along six or seven days a week, cutting on two different jobs, with a cable skidder and chainsaw - so he's jumping up and down, sawing, and pulling cable all day. I'm amazed at how hard he can work, but he's always been a bull. I think he's afraid that if he slows down, he's not going to be able to start back up. Or maybe it's just the way he is. Only issue he's really had is that the years of power tools and vibrations got to his wrists and hands, so he had to get carpal tunnel surgery.

Re: Sitting May Be Bad for Your Heart

#112

Post by dionidium »

nxsynonym wrote: post #28
bluGill wrote: post #25

Unfortunately while there is evidence that sitting all day is bad, we don't know if/what alternatives are good. Is standing better, or do you need to move? Maybe it is staring at something close (monitor, papers...) and sitting is only bad as a proxy (I know of no study that can actually say that hypothesis is wrong even though I just made it up). Modern life currently requires a lot of people to spend a lot of time…

I think the only real alternative is to get rid of the 8+ hour work day. Correct me if there is evidence to the contrary, but I don't think humans were designed to sit or stand in one position for extended periods of time, habitually. Unfortunately I don't see the 8 hour work day going away any time soon, so imo the best option is to alternate sitting/standing and take as many walking around breaks as possible.

The 8 hour day contributes, sure, but it's more than just that. Because I live in a city that allows it, I walk to/from work and to/from lunch every day. And to/from any other errand that needs doing. People who drive to suburban office parks do none of this.

It's not just what you're doing for the 8 hours that you're at your desk. A lot of us have arranged our entire lives to require no physical movement.

Re: Sitting May Be Bad for Your Heart

#113

Post by sliverstorm »

slphil wrote: post #90
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surely the answer lies somewhere in-between, that we must rest, and we must move I think the biggest change we made that caught us completely unprepared, was that we've committed ourselves to doing the same thing 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, all year long, for decades. I don't think our bodies evolved for this kind of effort (and I use the word "effort" even when the activity requires a lot of sitting, which is ap…

While nothing you said is inaccurate, be careful of falling for the "original affluent society" canard. Hunter gatherers do not work less than we do, and they do not get enough food. (Quillette recently did a good write-up on this.)

It doesn't necessarily matter whether they were affluent or not. When trying to understand what conditions our bodies need to be healthy, lacking definitive wisdom on the subject it's rational to try to understand what conditions proto-man lived in. What foods he ate, how he spent his time, and so forth. Whether or not proto-man was affluent, he spent countless centuries in a certain kind of lifestyle, and in all likelihood his biology adapted to that lifestyle.

Re: Sitting May Be Bad for Your Heart

#114

Post by sliverstorm »

sandworm101 wrote: post #107
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surely the answer lies somewhere in-between, that we must rest, and we must move I think the biggest change we made that caught us completely unprepared, was that we've committed ourselves to doing the same thing 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, all year long, for decades. I don't think our bodies evolved for this kind of effort (and I use the word "effort" even when the activity requires a lot of sitting, which is ap…

>> I don't think our bodies evolved for this kind of effort... Our bodies evolved to stay alive long enough for our kids to have kids of their own, somewhere between 30 and 40ish. There is no grand plan, no set lifestyle that will perfectly suit our bodies. Such concepts tough on quasi-religious ideas of grand designs and lost edens. Evolution is a dirty and unplanned mess of factors without any plan. Brushing my tee…

Brushing my teeth every day isn't something my body evolved to handle.

According to some dentists I've talked to, this is a consequence of modern diet. Eat a lot of raw carrots and other basic foods, and you wouldn't really need to brush.

Re: Sitting May Be Bad for Your Heart

#115

Post by sandworm101 »

sliverstorm wrote: post #114
sandworm101 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I don't think our bodies evolved for this kind of effort... Our bodies evolved to stay alive long enough for our kids to have kids of their own, somewhere between 30 and 40ish. There is no grand plan, no set lifestyle that will perfectly suit our bodies. Such concepts tough on quasi-religious ideas of grand designs and lost edens. Evolution is a dirty and unplanned mess of factors without any plan. Brushing my tee…

Brushing my teeth every day isn't something my body evolved to handle. According to some dentists I've talked to, this is a consequence of modern diet. Eat a lot of raw carrots and other basic foods, and you wouldn't really need to brush.

Go look at some old skulls in any museum. Tooth infections, leading to bone infections, were common before sugar and bread were a thing. Wild animals still get cavities. A chip here, a broken tooth there, and you've got an entry point no matter how many carrots you chew.

Re: Sitting May Be Bad for Your Heart

#117

Post by always_good »

sixdimensional wrote: post #41

Taking a bigger picture view, this makes me wonder.. we took so much effort to move from the industrial age, where hands on work, always active all day work took its toll on workers, to the service or knowledge age, where we sit all day and that takes its toll. Surely the answer lies somewhere in-between, that we must rest, and we must move, and the amount of each must be relative to each person and activity. I would…

While certainly nice to have, your wishlist of studies isn't very actionable in our world where nobody really exercises at all. It's not like the average person is erring on the side of moving too much. Moving at all would be a good start.

Re: Sitting May Be Bad for Your Heart

#118

Post by frankzinger »

austinjp wrote: post #38
bluGill wrote: post #25

Unfortunately while there is evidence that sitting all day is bad, we don't know if/what alternatives are good. Is standing better, or do you need to move? Maybe it is staring at something close (monitor, papers...) and sitting is only bad as a proxy (I know of no study that can actually say that hypothesis is wrong even though I just made it up). Modern life currently requires a lot of people to spend a lot of time…

Prolonged standing increases risk of varicose veins. It seems likely that mixing sitting and standing would be best. In what proportions, I don't know. Walking is likely to be a good substitute for simple standing in most people. It improves veinous return, puts some healthy impact into the legs, increases uptake of glucose from the blood stream by the leg muscles, gives the heart and lungs a little extra work, etc.

I've been working standing up for seven years now (ruptured discs). It's given me spider veins in my legs and feet. There needs to be more awareness of this downside. I hardly ever see it discussed.

I started running in the past few years but have not paid close enough attention to be able to determine whether or not that has improved the situation. I am also going to start alternating between sitting and standing. I am hopeful that these measures in combination can improve the situation.

Re: Sitting May Be Bad for Your Heart

#119

Post by jpm_sd »

mc32 wrote: post #71
tintor wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple and Google already have walking treadmill desks, which serves the same purpose.

Do they get used much, or do they sit unused, somewhere out of the way?

There's approximately one per floor, and they often sit idle.

Re: Sitting May Be Bad for Your Heart

#120

Post by [deleted] »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #76
sixdimensional wrote: post #41

Taking a bigger picture view, this makes me wonder.. we took so much effort to move from the industrial age, where hands on work, always active all day work took its toll on workers, to the service or knowledge age, where we sit all day and that takes its toll. Surely the answer lies somewhere in-between, that we must rest, and we must move, and the amount of each must be relative to each person and activity. I would…

> Surely the answer lies somewhere in-between, that we must rest, and we must move I think the biggest change we made that caught us completely unprepared, was that we've committed ourselves to doing the same thing 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, all year long, for decades. I don't think our bodies evolved for this kind of effort (and I use the word "effort" even when the activity requires a lot of sitting, which is ap…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN