Research

Mixed

High total daily sitting time (≥10 hours/day) is associated with a significantly increased risk of all-cause and cardiometabolic disease mortality compared to low sitting time (<4 hours/day), independent of physical activity levels.

If you sit for 10 or more hours a day, your risk of dying from heart or metabolic issues is significantly higher, even if you exercise. Try to break up sitting time throughout the day rather than just focusing on exercise sessions.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Relative to those with <4 h/day of total sitting time, participants with ≥10 h/day total sitting time had a 65% and 115% greater risk of all-cause and CMD-related mortality, respectively, after adjustment for sex, education, BMI, physical activity, smoking, self-rated general health and CMD status.
Josephine Y. Chau et al. · British Journal of Sports Medicine · 2013

Why this rating

Large prospective cohort (n=50,817) with objective linkage to death registries, though limited by self-reported sitting data and relatively short follow-up (3.3 years).

Source

Sedentary behaviour and risk of mortality from all-causes and cardiometabolic diseases in adults: evidence from the HUNT3 population cohort

Josephine Y. Chau et al. · British Journal of Sports Medicine · 2013

DOI 10.1136/bjsports-2012-091974

cohort · n=50817Cited 175×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →