The first study to look at how men and women respond to sedentary lifestyles differently challenges everything we think we know about the risks of prolonged sitting.
The alarming phrase “Sitting down is the new smoking” has been plastered over newspaper health pages for a lot of years. However, a recent study reveals that the negative health effects of a sedentary lifestyle and a sugary diet are really far more severe for males than they are for women, especially premenopausal women.
Scientists discovered that the sedentary lifestyle and higher sugar intake only had an effect on the male population. They discovered that the treatments reduced leg blood flow and a decline in a protein called adropin. A key biomarker for cardiovascular disease, adropin controls insulin sensitivity.
“We wanted to explore how men and women responded to reduced physical activity and increased sugar in their diet for a brief period of time, given that we know that the incidence of insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease is lower in premenopausal women compared to males.
It’s important to note that this study was extremely tiny; at best, it likely examined the responses of 18 women. It’s also crucial to note that 5,000 steps are still higher than the 3,000–4,000 steps per day, as indicated by the NHS, in the UK.
It’s intriguing that this is the first study to be released that focuses on how the two sexes respond differently to identical lifestyle modifications. It may imply that the majority of studies previously published on the topic either disregarded sex-based differences or focused mostly on males.
Numerous studies have examined the horrifying effects of sitting, including one 2012 study that found that doing so can raise our chance of developing diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality. According to a 2009 research, just two weeks of inactivity can significantly raise insulin resistance, a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes. The 2009 research, however, was limited to men, and the 2012 review made no mention of sex.
