Sit-stand desks: Apple was right about its health benefits

Sit-stand desks have become the norm in the working world, and mainly for office jobs. Thanks to these devices, it is possible to change position throughout the day, thus breaking the sedentary lifestyle and limiting the resulting complications. At Apple for a while, these chairs are now the subject of a large-scale study proving the health benefits!

Apple and sit-stand desks, a long history

In 2018, Apple chose to offer all its employees working in Apple Park sit-stand desks. A promising choice for well-being, to which Tim Cook has attached a controversial phrase: “sitting is the new cancer”.

9to5Mac also explains that the latter was “widely criticized because it considerably overestimated the risks of sitting and the benefits of standing, and there was much questioning about the extent of the medical evidence in favor of one or the other of these two positions”.

It must be said that the studies are quite clear on this subject, suggesting that the biggest problem is not sitting or standing, but rather the amount of time spent without moving. Good news for Apple’s CEO, a new study carried out on more than 83,000 English people now proves the benefits of sit-stand desks.

Define the benefits of different positions in everyday life

Before talking about the results, let’s go through the process followed during the study: the approximately 83,000 participants were followed for seven years, and wore an accelerometer on their wrist for at least four days a week.

This small device, akin to an activity tracker, determined when they sat, stood, walked or ran during waking hours.

The data collected thus made it possible to establish “a link between the time spent in a sitting, standing and stationary position (combining sitting and standing) and the health outcomes appearing in their medical file”.

The results of the study

Bottom line: sitting still for long periods increases the risk of orthostatic circulatory disease. However, the latter is less important when standing than when sitting. As a bonus, sitting increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, unlike standing.

In detail, researchers share that sitting or standing for more than 12 hours a day increases the risk of orthostatic circulatory disease by 22% and cardiovascular disease by 13% per additional hour. These figures rise to 26% and 15% respectively every hour after 10 hours of sitting.

“When it comes to standing, the risk of orthostatic circulatory disease increased after just two hours, increasing by 11% every 30 minutes after two hours of standing. On the other hand, standing had no impact on cardiovascular disease, regardless of the time,” the study specifies.

So you will have understood, the best thing is to move throughout the day. It is therefore essential to get up from time to time at the office to compensate for the dangers of sitting for long periods.