It's been said that sitting is the new smoking, and that sitting for many hours a day is a direct cause of diabetes. A recent study looked at link between sitting behaviours and risk of development of diabetes. Based on the results of this new study, researchers say the popular maxim "sitting is the new smoking" is not correct after all.

Sitting For A Long Time Is Not As Deadly As Previously Thought

A research led by the University of Sydney showed that there is a complexity of factors which determine the impact of sedentary lifestyle on human health, but it is not all determined by the hours you spend sitting down. The study can be summarized into this : sitting for a long time is not as deadly as you think.

Lead author Associate Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis from the Charles Perkins Centre and School of Public Health say that sitting has been labelled to be as dangerous as smoking, but they analyzed responses in a 1998 study where participants were asked to report the number or hours they spend on various sitting behaviors like at work, commuting, or watching TV, Eureka Alert said.

There Is Little Evidence Linking Sitting And Diabetes

Out of 4811 participants, there were 402 cases of diabetes incident during the follow-up period, but there was little evidence linking sitting and diabetes, Daily Mail Online reported. These associations were limited to TV sitting time. Professor Stamatakis said that their analysis show that health risks attributed to TV in the past are due to other factors, like poorer mental health, snacking and exposure to unhealthy foods advertising.

He emphasized that TV time and sitting time are practically uncorrelated. "Many previous studies also rarely acknowledge how higher BMI at the outset of the study increases the participant's risk of developing diabetes, which could compromise study results," Professor Stamatakis concluded.