SoylentNews

martyb writes:

How Your Office job is Affecting Your Metabolism:

The idea that long bouts of uninterrupted sitting might be bad for your health has gotten lots of attention over the past decade. The reason may seem obvious: If you’re sitting all the time, you’re not exercising. But emerging evidence suggests that there’s a deeper connection between sedentary time and lack of exercise, with the combination of both worse than either one on its own.

In a new study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers at the University of Texas show that four days of prolonged sitting induces a state that they call “exercise resistance.”

They had 10 volunteers complete two four-day protocols that involved sitting around for more than 13 hours a day while taking fewer than 4,000 steps. At the end of one of the four-day periods, they did a vigorous one-hour treadmill workout.

Normally a one-hour workout would produce a set of metabolic benefits that persist for at least a day. Your insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance, both of which are associated with heart health, improve immediately. And your postprandial lipemia – the rise in triglycerides circulating in your blood after a fatty meal, which may contribute to blocked arteries – will be attenuated.

But when the researchers fed their volunteers a high-fat, high-sugar slurry of melted ice cream and half-and-half creamer the next day, their blood sugar, insulin and triglyceride levels shot up by the same amount regardless of whether they’d exercised the night before. After all the sitting, their workout no longer packed its usual health punch.

If exercise after extended sitting didn't help, why bother exercising?

Original Submission