Roosevelt Christmas

Best Bet for a Healthy Holiday? Fresh Air

It’s here. On this holiday, many people will stop everything as they gather with family for a festive time and seasonal foods. Maybe it’s a goose, maybe it’s eggnog. or maybe it’s Chinese food. Though a bit of mindfulness might help, the menu is probably out of your hands. So your best bet for seeking a healthy holiday might be to get up and get a dose of fresh air.

A Signal That Heart Injury Comes from Sitting

A recent paper in Circulation gives new insight into the link between prolonged sitting and a shorter life. Researchers used data from the Dallas Heart Study. They looked at the relationship between prolonged sitting time and cardiac chronotropin T and I. Those are sensitive markers for injuries to the heart muscle that fall short of an actual heart attack.

If you rack up enough of those little injuries, you can wind up with heart failure and, eventually, a premature death.

The data showed a robust relationship between sitting for long stretches of time and indications of subtle heart damage. Now of course, this study is revealing a correlation, not cause and effect. But these data support and explain the established understanding that when people spend too much time sitting, the risk of heart failure and death is higher. The data suggest that sitting for too long harms the health of your heart.

Take That Holiday Walk

Certainly, we have more to learn. But this much is clear. Getting up for a walk can do you a world of good. Maybe you want to walk and talk with a loved one. Maybe you want some solitude. Either way, it will be good for your heart. Enjoy!

Click here for the study. Here and here you can find further perspective.

Roosevelt Christmas, photograph © Nik / flickr

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December 23, 2017

One Response to “Best Bet for a Healthy Holiday? Fresh Air”

  1. December 24, 2017 at 10:42 am, Stephen Phillips / American Association of Bariatric Counselors said:

    Motion is the Potion