A new study published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise has found that taking a five-minute light walk every half-hour can reduce the harmful health effects of sitting. The study, which was conducted by a team of researchers from the Columbia University, asked 11 healthy middle-aged and older adults to sit in the lab for eight hours over the course of five separate days. On one of the days, participants sat for the entire eight hours with only short breaks to use the bathroom. On the other days, the researchers tested different strategies to break up a person's sitting with light walking. The goal of the study was to find the least amount of walking one could do to offset the harmful health effects of sitting. The researchers measured changes in blood sugar levels and blood pressure, two important risk factors for heart disease. The study found that a five-minute light walk every half-hour was the only tested strategy that reduced blood sugar levels substantially compared with sitting all day. The strategy also reduced blood pressure by four to five points compared with sitting all day.
https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Abstract/9900/Breaking_Up_Prolonged_Sitting_to_Improve.200.aspx