Associations of objectively measured sedentary behaviour and physical activity with markers of cardiometabolic health.
Summary (1 min read)
Introduction
- Sedentary behaviour has previously been characterised as ≤1.5 metabolic equivalents (METs) [1, 2].
- METs are the energy cost of physical activity and are expressed as multiples of resting metabolic rate- where one MET (or 3.5 ml min-1 kg-1) is equivalent to a typical metabolism at rest for an average person.
- Many studies involving children and adolescents have reported minimal or no associations between sedentary time and markers of cardio-metabolic health and evidence in young adults remains limited, particularly in high risk populations [19, 20].
- The authors hypothesised that all three constructs would be independently associated with health.
Methods
- Cardiovascular, metabolic and anthropometric outcomes Markers of metabolic and cardiovascular health were measured, including fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and 2-hour plasma glucose (via an OGTT), HbA1c, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides.
- To further represent the strength of sedentary time and breaks in sedentary time with cardio-metabolic markers, variables were also examined as tertiles using analysis of covariance procedures.
- Two-tailed p values of 0.05 or less were considered statistically significant for main effects.
Results
- The majority of excluded participants failed to meet the minimum accelerometer wear time requirement.
- In addition, there were no significant interactions for sex in the results for sedentary time, MVPA or breaks.
Discussion
- This study of those at a high risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus recruited from primary care found that sedentary time was detrimentally associated with 2-hour glucose, triglycerides and HDL-cholesterol, independent of measured confounders.
- In addition, participants were rigorously phenotyped with traditional markers of cardio-metabolic health using standardised biochemical procedures.
- They rely on categorising movement strength, rather than directly distinguishing between sitting, lying and standing behaviours.
- Surprisingly, there was no difference between the effect sizes found in the light or moderate intensity profiles.
- The findings from this study need to be confirmed in different populations in order to establish a causal link between sedentary behaviour and cardio-metabolic dysfunction.
Duality of interest
- The authors declare that there is no duality of interest associated with this manuscript.
- JH and TY had original idea for the analysis, also known as Author Contributions.
- JH, TY, SB, KK, EW, MN and MJD made substantial contributions to conception and design.
- JH, CE and TG processed raw accelerometer files.
- All authors reviewed/edited the manuscript and gave final approval of the version to be published.
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Cites background from "Associations of objectively measure..."
...While those who spend more time in sedentary behaviour tend to do less moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (Mansoubi, Pearson, Biddle, & Clemes, 2014), the potentially independent health impacts of sedentary behaviour and physical activity mean that activity-promotion may fail to offset the health impact of sedentary behaviour (Henson et al., 2013)....
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...…tend to do less moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (Mansoubi, Pearson, Biddle, & Clemes, 2014), the potentially independent health impacts of sedentary behaviour and physical activity mean that activity-promotion may fail to offset the health impact of sedentary behaviour (Henson et al., 2013)....
[...]
322 citations
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References
3,267 citations
"Associations of objectively measure..." refers methods in this paper
...Freedson cutpoints were used to categorise each epoch as sedentary (<25 counts per 15 s), light-intensity physical activity (≥25 to <488 counts per 15 s) or MVPA (≥488 counts per 15 s) [24]....
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1,824 citations
"Associations of objectively measure..." refers methods in this paper
...In order for data to be included in the analysis, participants required at least four valid days of measurement [25]....
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1,782 citations
"Associations of objectively measure..." refers background in this paper
...Many studies involving children and adolescents have reported minimal or no associations between sedentary time and markers of cardio-metabolic health and evidence in young adults remains limited, particularly in high risk populations [19, 20]....
[...]
1,653 citations
1,577 citations
"Associations of objectively measure..." refers background in this paper
...Previous laboratory work has identified that distinctive physiological pathways are activated with increased sedentary behaviour, particularly around the metabolism of lipoprotein lipase, which remains largely unaffected by MVPA [36]....
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Frequently Asked Questions (11)
Q2. How many primary care practices were recruited?
Walking Away Middle age and older adults (aged up to 74) were recruited from 10 primary care practices within Leicestershire, United Kingdom (UK).
Q3. How many sedentary hours did the study measure?
Sedentary time (<100counts/min), MVPA (≥1952counts/min) and total physical activity (counts) were measured using Actigraph GT3X accelerometers (15s epochs).
Q4. What were the effects of sedentary time on markers of health?
Associations of breaks in sedentary time with markers of health, independent of overall time spent sedentary and in MVPA, were less consistent, although beneficial associations were observed with measures of adiposity.
Q5. What are the non-significant results for FPG and HbA1c?
The non-significant results observed for FPG and HbA1c are consistent with previous research on physical activity and sedentary behaviour [4, 14, 34] and reflect the different pathophysiological process underlying 2-hour and FPG regulation, with 2-hour glucose largely influenced by peripheral insulin resistance [34, 35].
Q6. What are the main factors that have been associated with sedentary behaviour?
Self-reported sedentary behaviour in the form of television viewing time has been positively associated with a multitude of cardio-metabolic risk factors [6, 28-30], including 2- hour glucose [28, 29].
Q7. What were the effects of sedentary time on health?
This study of those at a high risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus recruited from primary care found that sedentary time was detrimentally associated with 2-hour glucose, triglycerides and HDL-cholesterol, independent of measured confounders.
Q8. What is the main reason why the study focused on MVPA?
diabetes and cardiovascular prevention programmes concentrating solely on MVPA may overlook an area that is of fundamental importance to cardio-metabolic health.
Q9. What is the main outcome variable for the study?
Their findings, therefore, highlight the importance of using 2-hour glucose as the primary outcome variable when assessing the impact of sedentary time on cardio-metabolic risk.
Q10. What are the main factors that have been reported in recent studies?
recent reviews also report that self-reported sedentary time is consistently associated with an increased risk of diabetes [9] and the metabolic syndrome [31].8
Q11. What are the results of the study?
Their results extend those from other studies that have utilised both self-reported and objective measures of sedentary time and MVPA with cardio-metabolic variables in the general population.