8.5 Hours Of Daily Sitting Linked To Higher BMI And Cholesterol

12/18/24 • 18 min

3 Listeners

Sitting is a big part of modern life. Many people work at a desk all day, have long commutes, or at least enjoy some time relaxing on the couch at the end of the day. But sitting has gained a reputation as being bad for us—with some going so far as to call it “the new smoking.”

A recent study in the journal PLOS One sheds more light on just how much sitting is too much, using a cohort of more than 1,000 young adults, including 730 twins. The results showed that sitting for more than about eight and a half hours per day is linked to a higher total cholesterol and body mass index than sitting for less than that amount of time.

But there’s good news: 30 minutes of vigorous exercise per day may counter the negative effects that come from long days of sitting.

Joining guest host Kathleen Davis to discuss the findings are two of the study authors: Dr. Chandra Reynolds, professor in the Institute of Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado, Boulder; and Ryan Bruellman, PhD candidate in genetics, genomics, and bioinformatics at the University of California, Riverside.

Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

But there’s good news: 30 minutes of vigorous exercise per day may counter the negative effects that come from long days of sitting.

Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Previous Episode

The Accidental Discovery That Gave Us ‘Forever Chemicals’ | A Pregnancy Play Inspired By Mushroom Research

The Accidental Discovery That Gave Us ‘Forever Chemicals’

When it comes to PFAS chemicals—known as “forever chemicals”—we often hear that they’re used in nonstick coatings, flame retardants, and stain repellants. But those examples can hide the truth of just how widespread their use has been in modern life.

A new season of the “Hazard NJ” podcast looks at the origin story of PFAS chemicals, and the accidental discovery of PTFE—aka Teflon—in a DuPont laboratory in southern New Jersey. “Hazard NJ” host Jordan Gass-Pooré joins guest host Kathleen Davis to talk about the history of PFAS, their effect on the environment and health of New Jersey residents, and work towards cleaning up the PFAS mess.

A Play About Pregnancy Inspired By Mushroom Research

People are finding all sorts of uses for mushrooms these days, but we’re going to focus on two of them: how scientists are using them in robots and how playwrights are using them in theater. A few weeks ago, SciFri producer and host of our “Universe of Art” podcast D Peterschmidt moderated a panel at the Science In Theater Festival in Brooklyn, New York.

The festival is put on by a company called Transforma Theatre that stages science-inspired plays. Each year, they pair playwrights with scientists to make short plays that explore the research focus of the scientist.

Director and playwright Hannah Simms was paired with Dr. Andrew Adamatzky, a professor of unconventional computing, who’s learning how to connect various parts of nature, like mushrooms, to computers, and consulted with Hannah during the writing process. The play, called “Fruiting Body,” is about a fungal-computing scientist who, while pregnant, creates a fetal heart monitor powered by mycelium, which turns out to be sentient. While the concept is definitely science fiction, it is based on real unconventional mushroom research.

D talks with Hannah to learn why she wanted to explore her pregnancy through the lens of mushroom research. They’re also joined by Dr. Anand Mishra, a research associate at Cornell University’s department of mechanical and aerospace engineering, who explains how he helped build a robot that’s powered by king oyster mushroom mycelium.

Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Next Episode

How Blind Women In India Detect Early Breast Cancer | Web-Slinging Silk Becomes Real

A program trains women as tactile medical examiners to identify tumors before they show up on imaging scans. And, in a materials science discovery, scientists made a liquid silk solution that hardens and picks up objects—not unlike Spider-Man’s web.

How Blind Women In India Are Detecting Early Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer worldwide, just behind lung cancer. And the earlier a breast tumor is found, the more likely it is that the person survives their diagnosis.

An international program called Discovering Hands trains blind women to detect even the smallest lumps and bumps through breast exams. The idea is to leverage the blind examiners’ sense of touch, which may be more acute than sighted people’s, to feel for breast abnormalities and, hopefully, catch cancer in an early stage.

Discovering Hands has a cohort in India, a country where only around one in every two people diagnosed with breast cancer survive, and imaging equipment can be expensive or hard to come by.

SciFri producer Rasha Aridi talks with science journalist Kamala Thiagarajan, who reported on Discovering Hands’ program in India for NPR’s global health blog, Goats and Soda.

Accidental Breakthrough Makes Web-Slinging Silk A Reality

We’re all familiar with Spider-Man—the red-suited hero who swings through New York using spider silk that shoots from his hands. While Peter Parker has a radioactive spider to thank for his shooting webs, scientists at Tufts University have made their own version of liquid silk that solidifies and can pick up objects.

This discovery was made accidentally, says biomedical engineer Dr. Marco Lo Presti of the Tufts University Silklab. Lo Presti found that combining silk from a silkworm with dopamine and acetone made the silk change from a flexible liquid to a hardened fiber that attaches to objects.

Lo Presti joins guest host Kathleen Davis to talk about the possibilities of liquid silk adhesives, and the advancements he’d like to see to make the technology better.

Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.