Prolonged sitting induces endothelial dysfunction in healthy young adults which has been demonstrated to be offset by intermittent fidgeting and standing. No information exists on the impact of sitting and endothelial dysfunction in sedentary middle-aged adults, and whether common workplace counter-interventions (i.e. desk-standing/desk-pedaling) mitigate sitting-induced endothelial dysfunction.
The objective of this study was to examine whether breaking up prolonged sitting with intermittent standing or under-desk pedaling prevents sitting-induced popliteal artery endothelial dysfunction in middle-aged sedentary, overweight/obese office workers.
We tested the hypothesis that sitting-induced leg endothelial dysfunction would be prevented by intermittent standing or desk pedaling.
Thirteen middle-aged, sedentary overweight/obese subjects (10 males, 3 females; age: 38±3 yrs; BMI: 29.7±2 kg/m) participated in three separate testing sessions in a randomized order: 1) four hours of uninterrupted sitting; 2) four hours of sitting interrupted with four 10-minute bouts of standing; and 3) four hours of sitting interrupted with four 10-minute bouts of light-intensity desk pedaling. Doppler ultrasound measured popliteal artery flow mediated dilation (FMD), and associated measures (e.g. shear rate, blood velocity) were measured immediately prior to and immediately following each intervention (sit, stand, and desk pedaling).
Four hours of uninterrupted sitting induced a significant impairment in popliteal artery FMD (baseline: 3.1±0.3%, post: 1.6±0.5%, P<0.05). Interestingly, neither intermittent standing (baseline: 3.2±0.4%, post: 1.9±0.5%, P<0.05) nor intermittent desk pedaling (baseline: 3.2±0.4%, post: 1.9±0.4%, P<0.05) was effective at preventing excessive sitting-induced endothelial dysfunction.
Prolonged sitting-induced leg endothelial dysfunction cannot be prevented by brief intermittent bouts of standing or desk pedaling in middle-aged sedentary overweight/obese adults.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 16 January 2019.
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