Stand Up, America

More exciting news about exercise. In Newsletter No. 7, February 2014, the leading researcher, a professor in Scotland, stated, “Chairs are killers.”

The basis of that statement was the fact that the longer we sit, the more bad stuff agglomerates in our blood, leading to chronic diseases, such as circulation and heart problems and diabetes. To counteract these bad doings, we need to get up every hour or sooner and move around.

Well, get this! Recent research in another country substantiates sitting is not good for you (The Week, October 3, 2014).

Swedish scientists took blood samples from a group of sedentary, overweight men and women, all 68 years old. They measured the length of the subject’s telomeres—caps on the ends of DNA. The length of our telomeres is significant because they shorten as we age.

Half the volunteers were started on a moderate exercise program and told to sit less. The other half of the subjects, the control group, were told to continue their normal lives.

Blood tests were repeated six months later. The telomeres of the control group had shortened, as expected. In other words, the cells aged as they normally do. But the telomeres in the exercise group had grown longer.  Translated into layman’s terms, the cells actually became younger.

But that’s not all! The telomeres of those that exercised most, grew the least and sometimes even shortened. Wow.

The most beneficial factor in reducing aging of cells was time spent standing up!

Why are you sitting there? Stand up while you’re reading this.