Static Sitting Leading to Increase in Liver, Visceral and Abdominal Fat

New research carried out by the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre in the UK has found more evidence suggesting that sitting for prolonged periods of time is bad for your health, specifically focusing on the increase in fat surrounding internal organs.

This study looked at 124 participants at high risk of type 2 diabetes and measured the amount of time that they spent sedentary. They defined sedentary to be any time spent sitting with little-to-no energy expenditure.

After taking into account the age, ethnicity and physical activity levels of the participants, they found that the longer a person spent sitting still during the day, the higher their levels of liver, visceral and total abdominal fat.

The other interesting measure they found, was that individuals that did not meet the public health recommendations of 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise each week showed even higher levels of fat. Thus showing us that although exercise can lessen these effects – we are still not doing enough to improve our health if we are sitting still all day!

We are finding in similar studies, that the outcomes are suggesting that not only do we need to increase our physical activity levels (which we already knew), but we also need to decrease our sedentary levels.

Since we spend the better part of our day sitting, this problem appears to be an easy area for us to target in order to change that. That’s why when designing the CoreChair, Patrick Harrison not only wanted to ensure comfort and supportive posture; but wanted to also focus on providing us with the ability to move while we sit. The movement technology in the CoreChair was later validated by the Mayo Clinic to be classified as a NEAT certified product. NEAT standing for: Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. In short, this means that we are able to expend energy in the CoreChair without increasing our heart rate, thereby increasing blood flow, and caloric burn.

Want to learn more about NEAT? Check out the blog: What Is NEAT?