New study highlights importance of activity

Choosing the right care home can be difficult, but finding one that identifies that activity is a key part of maintaining health and wellbeing is important.

This is supported by a new study that has found sedentary behaviour could be significantly impacting people's health.

Published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the research revealed that a cultural shift now means more people spend longer periods of time sitting down, and this is having an impact on health.

It found that sitting for more than three hours per day is linked to 3.8 per cent of all-cause deaths. However, this can be easily prevented, according to the experts.

The researchers say that reducing sitting time to less than three hours per day would increase life expectancy by an average of 0.2 years.

To arrive at their conclusion, the team analysed behavioural surveys from 54 countries around the world. These were then matched with statistics on population size and overall deaths.

They found that the amount of time spent sitting significantly impacted all-cause mortality, accounting for approximately 433,000 of all deaths across all countries included in the study.

However, they found that even small improvements could have a sizeable impact on a person's health.

Lead investigator Leandro Rezende, from the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Sao Paulo School of Medicine, said they found that even modest reductions, such as 30 minutes less sitting time per day, could have an instant impact.

He added that more "bolder changes", such as reducing sitting time by half, could reduce the number of related deaths threefold.

People of all ages and abilities can be included in some form of activity, and the study shows that this is an increasingly important part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. In elderly care this can be more challenging, but having the right support and services available means that people can reap the health benefits of increased movement at any age.

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