The study was published in the journal Circulation: Heart Failure. Researchers discovered that men who sat for five hours a day at minimum (outside of work), and didn’t exercise regularly were twice as likely to experience heart failure than men who were physically active and sat for less than two hours a day.

Based on statistics from the American Heart Association, 1 in 5 Americans ages 40 or older will develop heart failure at some point during their lifetime. Heart failure occurs when the heart cannot support proper blood flow.

The researchers studied health records of more than 82,000 male participants ages 45 to 69 over 10 years. The subjects recorded the amount of prolonged sitting they experienced outside of work as well as their physical activity level. The study included men of all shapes, sizes and races.

After the end of the study, researches came to the conclusion that men who were not physically active were 52 percent more likely to develop heart failure than their more active counterparts.

“The results of this large study of a racially and ethnically diverse population reinforce the importance of a physically active, and importantly, a non-sedentary lifestyle for reducing the risk of heart failure,” Deborah Rohm Young, the study’s head and researcher at the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation, said. Take it from the lead researcher herself: A non-sedentary lifestyle is essential to reduce the risk of heart failure and poor heart health.

James Levine of the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix gives even more insight to the detriments prolonged sitting has on health. “If you’ve been sitting for an hour, you’ve been sitting too long,” he said. “My gut feeling is you should be up for 10 minutes of every hour.” Although he wasn’t directly involved with this particular study, Levine has made great strides in revealing the harmful effects of sitting.

Of course this isn’t the first study to shed light on the negative health effects of prolonged sitting. If you follow the Xdesk blog, we posted a study from Cornell University that revealed sedentary behavior (as defined as sitting for more than 11 hours a day in this scenario) is directly related to a 12 percent increase in premature mortality in women. To learn more about the health study, click here.

This study was originally reported in the International Business Times. To see the full article, click here.

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