"Standing was not found to reduce the risk of heart conditions such as stroke, heart failure and coronary heart disease, the researchers said."

> In fact, it "found that being on your feet for more than two hours a day may increase the risk of developing problems such as deep vein thrombosis and varicose veins," reports The Guardian.

So, when do we see the class-action lawsuits for anyone working as a checkout clerk? There's no real reason those people need to be standing instead of sitting. Workers in certain countries having stools at their station they are seated at instead proves that.

Sitting still for long periods of time is bad for your circulatory system.

Turns out, same applies to standing still for long periods of time.

Actually standing all day is not a good thing. Just sitting all day is in a preset position is not a good thing. But being able to switch back and forth with whatever height works for you? That's gold.

These are called sit/stand desks where I'm at and most people do both throughout the day. Because, without a study, they are able to understand that sitting on their ass all day can't be good, and standing in the same spot for extended periods of time is also no bueno if for no other reason than it starts to get uncomfortable.

Who are these studies for?

...the first time I looked at them.

Standing in one place for hours is painful.

Walking around is fine

I have a standing desk, but I never stand for very long. It's just nice to take a break from sitting every now and then.

Standing still does not provide any cardiovascular exercise versus sitting. All it does is make your feet hurt and increase the effort your body has to make to return venous blood to the heart. It is probably different, if you are constantly moving about, but just standing at a computer workstation or in front of a machine seems unnecessary.

Is it just me who finds it hard to concentrate when standing? I'm pretty sure there is a part of may brain that is complaining when I try write code or similar if I'm standing and it is silently nagging me to sit down first. Like when a coworker asks for help and if I can't see the solution right away I will pull up a chair and sit down so I can better think about the problem.

When I saw standing desks that lazy part of me said "no way". The self improvement part of me said "maybe we should give it a f

There is no way that primitive humans were on their butts or asleep 22 hours a day. This is one of many stories the last few years that focus on new things that can give you a bloodclot or heart attack.

This is an association between the group of people who stand for more than 2 hours and the group that doesn't. Those are not random groups and its not at all unlikely that there are other reasons for the differences between the two groups. Including that the group with 2 hours more standing includes a lot of people who are on their feet all day or have jobs that expose them to hazards or are poor and don't get good medical attention or eat worse diets or ....

This isn't really science, its mining datasets

So we shouldn't sit, and we shouldn't stand. Perhaps there is a lying desk?

Here is some background info on the subject for those interested.

Once again, and "as always" lately, the study being reported is valid and meaningful (about a relatively minor issue), but the reporting is sensationalistic.

Personally, I "can't stand" standing desks. My son won't do any desk work without standing at one. It's personal preferences, so do what makes you happy and productive. The "health risks" are generally minor, and they are 100% entirely preventable with the simple measure of wearing compression stockings.

But, by way of technical background, here is the medical stuff:

The heart pumps blood through arteries to peripheral tissues, gas and fluids exchange in the capillaries, and spent blood returns through the veins, to the chest where it is "refurbished" then recirculated. The biomechanics and the potential diseases and disabilities that can occur are night and day different between arteries and veins. When the article says "circulatory disease" and "circulatory health", it is lumping it all together in a way that may play to laymen reporting, but is not technically meaningful.

When the arteries get diseased, such as the main degenerative disease of atherosclerosis ("hardening of the arteries"), life-sustaining arterial circulation is diminished, which can lead to (1) exercise induced angina (muscular pain and weakness when blood supply is insufficient for metabolic demands), and infarcts (dead !) if there is sudden complete occlusion due to blood clots forming on the atheromas, such as stroke and heart attack. Non-degenerative diseases of blood hypercoagulability and of autoimmune vasculitis cause similar risks for people in any age group. When these same degenerative or pathological processes affect the root of the circulation, the heart, the risks and misery are compounded. Also, the heart and major arteries operate under high pressure (the range between systolic and diastolic, integrated as the "map", mean arterial pressure) which if too high leads to pressure and shear stresses in the arteries which is a major contribution to the pathogenesis of these diseases (along with other risk factors such as smoking, diabetes, hyperlipidemias). These serious life-and-limb threatening disorders are hallmarks of arterial disease, and this is what is implied when talking about "cardiovascular disease".

In contrast, the veins are not subject to these diseases. They operate at low pressures. Vascular pressures must always be judged relative to ambient atmospheric pressure. A systolic pressure 120 torr in the aorta means 120 mm Hg over atmospheric. In the complementary vein, the vena cava, pressures are 5 torr. This is reflected in the mural thickness, thick walled arteries versus thin walled veins. According to LaPlace's Law, mural tension, cylinder radius, and luminal pressure are related by T = Pr, so venous pressures being lower have lower mural tension. Vascular thickness is controlled by tensile stresses on the tissues, so arteries adapt by getting thicker, but arteries and veins and all vessels in between have the same mural stress by adjusting the numbers of layers of cells. But with low pressures, mural stresses that lead to tissue injury, inflammation, and atherosclerosis are absent in the veins.

The veins have a different issue. We, humans, stand upright. Blood that has circulated to the lower extremities must then move uphill against gravity to return to the heart. Negative pressures in the right atrium, "suction" during diastole, are insufficient to counteract the hydrostatic pressure of the 1-2 meter column of blood in the veins while we are standing. The effect is that blood in the feet and legs will start to accumulate and engorge the veins and increase pressure - unless there is an accessory mechanism to keep venous blood moving uphill against gravity back to the heart. That happens in two ways. First are the venous valves. In the veins, there are two-leaf "bicuspid" valves every few centimeters that direct flow back to the heart,

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[1] https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23490053&cid=64871007

I dunno about anyone else around here, but this 'standing desk' stuff never made any sense to me whatsoever, and in fact I quit a job I had in part because they expected me to be on my feet all the time, which was murder on my back and joints, especially knees. If we weren't evolved to sit, then we wouldn't be able to sit, that's my hypothesis. By all means, do get up and move around as many times a day at work as you feel is necessary, though.