BioQuakes

AP Biology class blog for discussing current research in Biology

Tag: sitting

The More You Sit, The More You Forget!

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles recently discovered a linkage between the memory of middle to older aged adults and their sedentary behaviors, actions that require little energy like sitting or lying down.

They concluded that long periods of sitting, like at a desk chair, affects the specific region of the brain that is involved in creating new memories, the medial temporal lobe. The UCLA researchers closely studied 35 people ages 45 to 75 years old, documenting their physical activity for two weeks prior to and during the study.  After the three months of research, they used a high resolution MRI scan and quickly noticed similarities between the thickness of each adult’s medial temporal lobe who spent on average the same amount of hours sitting everyday. The more hours spent sitting, regardless of any physical activity, the more thin the medial temporal lobe. “The participants reported that they spent from 3 to 7 hours, on average, sitting per day. With every hour of sitting each day, there was an observed decrease in brain thickness, according to the study. ”

Even though the findings of this study are preliminary, it suggests that “reducing sedentary behavior may be a possible target for interventions designed to improve brain health in people at risk for Alzheimer’s disease.” Becoming more active is always a great thing, but becoming conscious of how much time you spend being inactive and working to decrease that, could help you out more than you think. There is still more research to be done on this matter but this is a step in the right direction for improving life for those with memory related diseases and improving overall brain health.

To read more check out the full article here!

Sit less, Live longer

Many jobs involve sitting all day

Many jobs involve sitting all day

People tend to spend most of their days sitting. Despite maybe an hour or two spent at the gym, people are sedentary for a majority of their day.  Two studies were performed, one showing that sitting less can slow cells from aging. The other found that standing up, even if your not moving, can be beneficial.

Past studies show that sitting for hours makes a person more likely to develop diabetes, have heart disease, and even die prematurely.

Scientists in Sweden wanted to find out why sitting and illness were linked so they created an experiment altering the time people were sitting or exercising and tracked their physiological results. They focused on the people’s telomere changes. They then compared these telomere lengths to the length of obese, sedentary men and women telomeres. These volunteers then were instructed to exercise and sit less. After six months, the researchers found that their telomeres had lengthened; this means that the cells were getting physiologically younger.

In conclusion, the telomeres shortened much more in response to reduction of sedentary time than to exercising. This means that just be sitting less, one can avoid aging, and other illnesses. Another experiment preformed by Dr. Katzmarzyk found that standing, not even moving, dropped mortality rates. This suggests that standing is not inactive or dangerous, but rather beneficial.

I found this article very interesting to me because I am very active in sports, but I also am sitting a lot in school. I want to know whether the amount of sitting I am doing is greater than my exercise, causing me to age more in the long run. I think it is more important that we are active in school, despite the fact that most of us do after school sports.

image source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_stress  

article source:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/sit-less-live-longer/

other sources:

http://www4.utsouthwestern.edu/cellbio/shay-wright/intro/facts/sw_facts.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24152707

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