Sitting for more than 10 hours a day ‘linked to higher dementia risk’

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Study author Gene Alexander, professor of psychology and psychiatry at the Evelyn F McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Arizona and Arizona Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centre in the US, said: “We were surprised to find that the risk of dementia begins to rapidly increase after 10 hours spent sedentary each day, regardless of how the sedentary time was accumulated. “This suggests that it is the total time spent sedentary that drove the relationship between sedentary behaviour and dementia risk, but importantly lower levels of sedentary behaviour, up to around 10 hours, were not associated with increased risk.” In England, adults of working age average about 9.5 hours per day of sedentary time. We were surprised to find that the risk of dementia begins to rapidly increase after 10 hours spent sedentary each day, regardless of how the sedentary time was accumulated Professor Gene Alexander For the study, the researchers looked at data from more than 49,000 people aged 60 and above from the UK Biobank, an online database of medical and lifestyle records of half a million Britons. “We found that once you take into account the total time spent sedentary, the length of individual sedentary periods didn’t really matter.” Prof Raichlen said more research is needed to fully answer the question of whether physical activity can attenuate the risk of physical activity after being sedentary for 10 or more hours.