Researchers suggest that standing desks may not be as beneficial as we think.

Yep. According to new research, it turns out that "prolonged standing" is bad for us, too.

The study — which was conducted by scientists from Curtin University in Australia — found that adults who stood for 2 hours while working experienced an increase in whole-body discomfort and a reduced mental state.

I expect many of you are reading this thinking that you just can't win. I certainly am.

Earlier this year, Medical News Today covered a study that linked sitting down for long periods of time with a buildup of visceral fat, or fat around our internal organs. This is the worst kind of fat — the kind that raises our risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

In 2016, another study that we reported on claimed that sitting down for more than 3 hours every day is responsible for more than 430,000 deaths across 54 countries.

Given that the average person in the United States spends a whopping 12 hours per day sitting down, such studies are worrying.

It seems that upping our physical activity alone won't reduce the harms of prolonged sitting — so, what can we do?

According to recent research, we need to reduce the amount of time that we spend sitting down. Enter the standing desk: a simple solution to a big problem. Or is it?

Prolonged standing increased discomfort

In response to what has been coined "sitting disease," standing desks have become all the rage.

Research has shown that standing desks not only decrease the amount of time people spend sitting in the workplace, but they have also been linked to increased productivity.

But the new study — recently published in the journal Ergonomics — claims that standing while working might not be so good for us after all.

Study co-author Leon Straker, who works in the School of Physiotherapy and Exercise Science at Curtin University, and his colleagues tested how 2 hours of standing affected the cognitive functioning and body comfort of 20 adults as they worked.

While the creative problem-solving abilities of participants improved over the 2-hour standing period, the subjects experienced a reduction in mental reaction times.

The participants also reported a 47 percent increase in discomfort across all body regions, particularly in the lower back and lower limbs. Subjects also reported swelling in the lower limbs.

Based on these results, the researchers conclude that "prolonged standing should be undertaken with caution."

But, before you revert to hours of sitting — which is proven to be harmful — it's worth noting that this research only included 20 people, which is hardly a big enough sample to make any firm conclusions about the risks of prolonged standing.

From a personal perspective, I have found that using a standing desk for a few hours per day not only helps me to concentrate, but it also forces me to move around. It seems that my colleagues feel the same way.

"My concentration is up," said one. "It's really good for avoiding the afternoon 'slump,'" said another, while one colleague said that using her standing desk makes her feel "less restless."

All in all, I believe that the results of this research should be taken with a pinch of salt, and that much larger studies are needed to gain a better understanding of the potential health risks of prolonged standing.

That said, going from sitting all day to standing for a few hours is bound to feel strange at first. If a standing desk is on your wish list for work, these useful tips may help to make your experience more comfortable.

For women, their waist size and waist-to-hip ratio may have an impact on heart attack risk, according to a new study.

A higher body mass index (BMI) is known to raise the risk of myocardial infarction, or heart attack, and by and large, this association seems to be the same for both men and women.

But as a measurement, BMI says nothing about body fat distribution and does not differentiate between fat types — such as visceral fat versus subcutaneous fat.

Visceral fat is so named because it builds around one's internal organs, such as the pancreas, liver, and intestines. This type of fat is more closely linked with insulin resistance and other cardiometabolic risk factors.

Sex may influence the type of fat that a person is more predisposed to. Studies have revealed, for instance, that men are more likely to accumulate visceral fat, whereas women tend to have more subcutaneous fat.

Now, a new study zooms in on body fat distribution and the risk of heart attack. Researchers led by Sanne Peters — of the George Institute for Global Health at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom — studied the body size and shape of almost half a million adults to locate the best predictors of heart attack risk.

Waist-to-hip ratio dangerous for women

Using the U.K. Biobank database, Peters and colleagues examined almost 500,000 people aged between 40 and 69, who were followed up for a period of 7 years.

During this time, 5,710 cases of heart attack were recorded — 28 percent of which occurred in women.

The team applied Cox regression models to calculate the risk of myocardial infarction associated with BMI, as well as "waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, and waist-to-height ratio."

The study yielded some interesting results regarding sex differences in heart attack risk. The study authors summarize their findings.

"Although general and central adiposity measures each have profound deleterious effects on the risk of [heart attack] in both sexes, a higher waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio conferred a greater excess risk of [heart attack] in women than in men."

"Waist-to-hip ratio was more strongly associated with the risk of [heart attack] than body mass index in both sexes, especially in women," they continue.

"Our findings support the notion that having proportionally more fat around the abdomen (a characteristic of the apple shape) appears to be more hazardous than more visceral fat which is generally stored around the hips (i.e., the pear shape)."

Sanne Peters

However, this is not the first study to draw attention to body fat distribution as being particularly detrimental to women's cardiometabolic health. Previous research that Medical News Today reported on found that, while both men and women had visceral fat, this entailed a higher cardiometabolic risk for women.

According to the most recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 36 percent of adults in the United State are obese, with women being more affected than men.

As the CDC note, over 38 percent of U.S. women are obese, while slightly over 34 percent of men have the condition.

Are there any long-term impacts of watching TV as a toddler?

Paradoxically, in this fast-paced modern world we live in, humans are more and more inclined to sit for long periods of time staring at screens.

This shift in habits is considered by many to have a negative impact on our children.

Though most parents try to limit the amount of screen time that their children have, the ever-growing number of screens per household is making it more and more challenging.

For instance, around 1 in 3 infants in the United States have a television in their bedroom, and nearly half of all children watch television or DVDs for almost 2 hours each day.

Screen time and negative outcomes

Evidence is mounting that screen time has a negative impact on children as they develop. Because watching TV is sedentary both physically and mentally, connectivity may be disturbed in the rapidly developing toddler brain. Also, it has the potential to set up negative habits for later life — choosing easier, less demanding activities over physically or mentally challenging pastimes, for example.

Studies have revealed that increased screen time for toddlers and kindergarten children increases the risk of having a higher body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference as they enter the first grade. Other studies have found that waist circumference and physical fitness are adversely impacted as children enterfourth grade.

Off the back of these findings, in October 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics reduced the guidelines for television viewing in children aged 2–5 years to no more than 1 hour per day.

Although there is little debate that excess television viewing has unfavorable health consequences, the impact of early TV viewing on behavior as the child enters their teens is less known. It was this direction that a team of Canadian researchers recently took. In particular, they were interested in lifestyle outcomes, such as school performance and dietary choices.

The researchers were led by Prof. Linda Pagani and graduate student Isabelle Simonato, from the School of Psychoeducation at the Université de Montréal in Canada. They took data from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development.

Early TV viewing's effect on teens

In total, almost 2,000 boys and girls born in Quebec in 1997–1998 were involved in the study. The children had been followed from the age of 5 months.

Parents reported TV habits as they grew, then, when the children reached the age of 13, they self-reported dietary habits and behavior at school. Prof. Pagani explains why this study is particularly useful, saying, "Not much is known about how excessive screen exposure in early childhood relates to lifestyle choices in adolescence."

"This birth cohort is ideal, because the children were born before smartphones and tablets, and before any pediatric viewing guidelines were publicized for parents to follow. They were raising their children with TV and seeing it as harmless. This makes our study very naturalistic, with no outside guidelines or interference — a huge advantage."

As expected, there were measurable effects of increased TV time on habits as the children entered their teenage years. The team's results were published earlier this month in the journal Preventive Medicine.

Each additional hour of TV viewing at the age of 2 predicted significantly worse eating habits at the age of 13. They consumed more prepared meats and cold cuts, French fries, white bread, soft and fruit-flavored drinks, sports and energy drinks, sweet or salty snacks, and desserts.

Toddlers who watched more TV were more likely to skip breakfast on school days as a 13-year-old.

Also, these children were less likely to make an effort in their first year of high school, which had an adverse effect on performance and ambition. As a 2-year-old, each additional hour spent watching television per day predicted a 10 percent increase in BMI at age 13.

How does TV have such an effect?

Simonato believes that it is the sedentary nature of TV watching that might be to blame for some of the findings. She explains, "We hypothesized that when toddlers watch too much TV it encourages them to be sedentary, and if they learn to prefer effortless leisure activities at a very young age, they likely won't think much of non-leisure ones, like school, when they're older."

"This study tells us that overindulgent lifestyle habits begin in early childhood and seem to persist throughout the life course. An effortless existence creates health risks."

Prof. Linda Pagani

"For our society," continues Prof. Pagani, "that means a bigger healthcare burden associated with obesity and lack of cardiovascular fitness.

The strength of this study lies in the depth of the data. Because the team had access to a myriad of information on the family lives of the children, they could control for other factors that might have played a role, such as socioeconomic parameters and psychological factors.

They were even able to remove the influence of screen time habits at the age of 13, enabling them to get a clear picture of the effects of watching TV as a toddler.

Prof. Pagani offers some insight into the way that parents use screens as a tool when other forms of interaction might be beneficial. She explains, "In preschool, parents use screen time as a reward and as a distraction. They establish quiet 'idling' at a teachable moment when children could actually be learning self-control."

"Using distraction," she adds, "as a reward to help children behave in situations where they should be learning self-control sets them on a trajectory where they will seek out distraction when faced with demands for cognitive effort.

"Rewarding distraction and low mental effort though entertainment will later influence a young person's commitment to school and perseverance in their studies."

The researchers agree with the recommendations set out by the American Academy of Pediatrics: reducing screen time to no more than 1 hour each day for 2–5-year-olds is the best advice.

The study authors believe that this will "ensure healthy developmental trajectories in adolescence."

How do our friends' gym selfies — and other exercise-related social media posts — affect us?

The reasons behind why we — and our friends — may want to share workout successes on social media are manifold.

Perhaps it's simply a way of tracking this difficult journey and seeking motivation through our friends' encouragement.

Or maybe we try to send motivational messages ourselves, implying, "If I can do it, so can you!" (Though why not go ahead and admit that it's probably just honest bragging?)

But what response does posting about these achievements on social media elicit from friends and followers? So, beyond the "likes," little hearts, and comments of "you go, my friend!" or "well done," how do these posts influence others' psyches?

Stephen Rains, at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and Tricia Burke, at Texas State University in San Marcos, have recently led a study investigating "the outcomes of receiving [social network] posts about exercise."

Fitness posts and body image

The researchers' findings — published in the journal Health Communication — indicate that people who see a lot of fitness-related posts from their friends may become more self-conscious about their own bodies.

"When people received more posts about exercise, it made them more concerned about their weight — more self-conscious — and that's not a good thing," says Rains.

In their study, Rains and Burke worked with 394 participants, of which 304 provided complete sets of data. Of these, 232 participants "reported engaging in at least some exercise," so the final sample was restricted to this group.

The participants were required to access their most-used social media account and view the posts that their friends had entered over the past 30 days. They were then asked to count how many of these posts were related to their friends' exercise routine, which could include a broad range of physical activities — from walking to attending a gym.

To assess the impact of such posts, the participants were then told to identify the top three "fitness posters" on their friends list and to say how similar they thought they were to each of those people — considering, for instance, whether they had similar backgrounds, body types, or ages.

Finally, they were all asked to complete questionnaires in which they reported how they felt about their own weight, what their attitude to exercise was, and whether they were likely to make "upward" or "downward social comparisons."

Here, "upward social comparisons" refers to thinking of somebody else as a person that you aspire to be like, and "downward" comparisons refers to perceiving others as being "less than."

"Our results were mixed," reports Rains, noting that the impact of exercise-related posts on the viewers could work out both for the better and for the worse.

"Good can come out of this, in the sense that it can make some people more interested in exercising and feel better about exercising, but it might make other people feel worse about themselves if they're more concerned with their weight."

Stephen Rains

It's all down to peer perception

Rains and Burke noticed that viewers' reactions to exercise-related social media posts were largely dependent on their perception of their relationship with the poster.

"We thought about this from the perspective of social comparison theory, and the idea that we use others as benchmarks to figure out where we stand," explains Rains.

He also adds that "[s]imilarity heightens social comparison, so if the person posting about exercise is someone who's in your age group, has a similar build, or a similar background, you might think that's a pretty good reference, and that might spark in you even greater weight concern."

Thus, in the worst-case scenario, individuals who perceived their exercising peers as being very similar to themselves in other respects became more worried about their own weight, and their body image was more likely to worsen.

Positive effects, however, are also possible. People who more readily engage in upward social comparisons, looking up to friends, and striving to better themselves will likely use their peers' exercise-related posts as motivational leverage for their own fitness efforts.

"With upward social comparisons, you tend to compare yourself to those you perceive as superior to you," notes Burke. "In terms of exercise," she says, "if a person is posting a lot about exercise, they must be really fit, so you're using that as a motivator."

At the same time, people who give free reign to downward social comparisons tend to look down on their peers and will not be affected by their social media posts in any way.

Rains and Burke also note that social media remains a largely mysterious outlet when it comes to understanding how it affects its users.

"This is all still pretty new ground, and we're trying to make sense of what it means, and if and why it matters," notes Rains.

Burke concludes by saying that their next step from here might be to find out more "about why people are posting about [their physical exercise efforts] and how they make decisions about what to post."

Smartphone apps can help you to identify saturated fats in your diet and recommend more healthful alternatives that may contribute to lowering your cholesterol.

Cholesterol is essential for normal functioning of the body. Cholesterol is a fatty substance, called a lipid, that is produced by the liver and found in some foods.

Proteins in your blood carry cholesterol and when combined are called lipoproteins.

High-density lipoproteins (HDLs) are known as "good cholesterol" and low-density lipoprotein (LDLs) are called "bad cholesterol." HDLs carry cholesterol away from cells to be broken down by the liver, while LDLs carry cholesterol to the cells for use.

If there is more cholesterol than the cells can use, it begins to build up on the artery walls and may cause disease of the arteries.

Almost 1 in 3 adults in the United States have high cholesterol, which puts a person at an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, atherosclerosis, transient ischemic attack, and peripheral arterial disease.

The chance that a person will develop coronary heart disease increases as their blood cholesterol level rises, which may also result in angina during times of stress or exercise.

You can lower your blood cholesterol levels by cutting down on foods that are high in saturated fat and swapping them with foods that contain unsaturated fat.

Avoiding foods containing trans fats, reducing the total amount of fat you consume, eating high-fiber foods, and getting active can also help lower cholesterol. In some cases, your healthcare provider may also recommend medication.

Smartphone apps can also help you to achieve your goal of lowering your cholesterol through dietary, nutritional, and fitness programs. Here are Medical News Today's top 10 apps for individuals with high cholesterol.

Cholesterol Food Reference

iPhone: $1.99

Cholesterol Food Reference is the perfect companion to help you find out the cholesterol value of everyday foods, including more than 200 foods found at the grocery store and more than 100 fast foods.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010 recommended restricting consumption of dietary cholesterol to under 300 milligrams each day. Although this figure does not appear in the 2015–2020 edition, these guidelines do recommend that we "eat as little dietary cholesterol as possible" while still maintaining a healthful, balanced diet.

Foods high in dietary cholesterol tend to also be higher in saturated fats. Evidence indicates that eating patterns that are lower in dietary cholesterol intake are linked with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and obesity.

MyFitnessPal

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

MyFitnessPal can help you to adopt more healthful eating habits and stay active to lower your cholesterol. Track all nutrients in your diet, such as cholesterol, fat, fiber, calories, protein, carbohydrates, and vitamins, just to name a few.

MyFitnessPal includes a database of more than 6 million foods and recognizes more than 4 million barcodes to track what you're eating. You can import nutritional information from all of your favorite recipes as well as log menu items from the restaurants that you frequently visit.

Set personalized goals and the app can help you to reach them. The MyFitnessPal app is just like having your own pocket-sized nutritional coach. Track your steps, log your cardio and strength exercises, or choose from the 350+ workouts included in the app.

MyNetDiary

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

MyNetDiary can track anything related to your health — from planning meals and keeping tabs on nutrients, to logging your exercise regime, test results, and medications.

MyNetDiary is also an effective tool for tackling weight issues. People who are overweight or obese are more likely to have higher levels of LDL cholesterol, diabetes, and high blood pressure — all of which are risk factors for heart disease. MyNetDiary could help you to reduce your risk factors and therefore your chances of heart disease.

And, tracking your food intake is quick and easy; the app's barcode scanner helps to speed up data entry. MyNetDiary also includes more than 500 exercises and activities and syncs with scales and fitness trackers from Fitbit, Jawbone UP, Garmin, and Withings.

Foodvisor

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

Foodvisor is a nutritional coach that aims to help you eat smarter and more healthfully. Simply take a photo of your meal, and Foodvisor's food recognition software will analyze it and send a nutrient report within seconds.

Foodvisor's nutrient analysis reports a serving size estimate and details on calories, fats, proteins, carbohydrates, fibers, and cholesterols. The barcodes can also be scanned to log food items from a database of thousands of products.

Chat with the Foodvisor nutritionists to receive health tips and goal-orientated recommendations. Progress is tracked through real-time charts and graphs so that you can identify a regimen that works for you.

Fooducate

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

Fooducate teaches you to eat better for your health. The app analyzes the nutritional panels and ingredients found on packaging to help you discover hidden nasties — such as trans fats, added sugars, artificial sweeteners, additives, and preservatives — in food products.

Fooducate has a database of more than 250,000 product barcodes and will generate an easy-to-understand nutritional grade between A and D for each food. The app will even provide suggestions for more healthful options based on the product that you have scanned.

With Fooducate, you can track your meals, food intake, calories, macros such as proteins, fats, and carbs, exercise, sleep, hunger levels, and mood. Nutrition professionals also provide health, weight loss, and diet tips.

Smart Blood Pressure

iPhone: Free

When you have high cholesterol, it's vital to check your blood pressure regularly. High cholesterol and high blood pressure are risk factors for heart disease, and when a person has more than one risk factor, they work together to increase heart disease risk further.

Smart Blood Pressure lets you track your blood pressure, locate unique patterns in your blood pressure levels, and learn how to regain control of your blood pressure.

The app also logs dietary cholesterol, tracks any medication you are taking, and compiles charts that compare blood pressure with other variables such as cholesterol, pulse, weight, and calories.

Vida Health

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

Vida is a personal health coach that can help you to build healthful eating habits, increase your physical activity, and reach health goals such as lowering your cholesterol. One user of the app reported that, after using it, they were able to cease using cholesterol medication.

Choose a health expert to suit you and together, through both online messaging and video consultations, you will devise a plan to achieve your health goal.

Each of Vida's structured programs comes with engaging and inspiring lessons that aim to create lasting results. Set your goal and follow your progress through motivational visual charts.

HowUdish

iPhone: Free

Do you find it a challenge to limit saturated and trans fats when you eat out? HowUdish is an app designed to help you find dishes at nearby restaurants that suit your specific diet goals.

To avoid the temptation of eating the wrong foods, let HowUdish know what diet you are on, and it will find location-based menu options that are suitable for you.

Swipe and save dishes that appeal to you at nearby restaurants. Plan ahead and select meals from nearby dishes to help keep your eating patterns on track. View ingredients, saturated fats and trans fats, and other detailed nutritional information.

Nutrients

iPhone: $4.99

Nutrients is a nutritional database at your fingertips. Nutrients can help you to lower your cholesterol by letting you know how much saturated fat, trans fats, and cholesterol there are in the foods that you eat.

Search through their list of nearly 200,000 foods to discover nutrition facts complete with vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, sugars, sterols, and other compounds.

Create a recipe on the app to see the nutrients included in your meal. Add each ingredient and serving size and Nutrients will provide you with a comprehensive list of nutritional facts about your recipe.

ShopWell

Android: Free

iPhone: Free

ShopWell is the must-have app to take along to the grocery store with you. ShopWell gives insight into the food products you buy and offers suggestions for more healthful options that may be a better fit for your lifestyle.

ShopWell is simple to use. Just scan an item and all the information associated with the product will appear on screen so that you can make an informed choice about what you purchase.

The app offers alerts and support for various food goals, including lowering your cholesterol, and provides a fast and fun way to discover new foods in real-time.

Low-calorie vegetarian and Mediterranean diets are both heart-healthy and improve health in different ways.

The scientists hope that their findings, which are now published in the journal Circulation, might raise awareness that the vegetarian diet can offer another option for reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke.

The Mediterranean diet "is widely reported as one of the healthiest models for preventing cardiovascular disease," they note, whereas the vegetarian diet is much less well studied — particularly in regard to its potential to offer a heart-healthy alternative for people who are used to eating meat and fish.

"To best evaluate this issue," says lead study author Francesco Sofi, a professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Florence and Careggi University Hospital in Italy, "we decided to compare a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet with a Mediterranean diet in the same group of people."

A lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet excludes meat, poultry, fish, seafood, and any foods that are derived from them, but it includes eggs and dairy products such as milk, yogurt, and cheese.

Both reduced 'cardiovascular risk profile'

For their study, Prof. Sofi and colleagues randomly assigned 107 participants to follow either a low-calorie vegetarian diet or a low-calorie Mediterranean diet for 3 months. The participants were aged between 18 and 75 and were all healthy but overweight.

All of the participants attended counseling sessions, during which they received advice about the diet that they were about to start on. The information included a detailed menu plan for 1 week of meals, as well as information about foods to include and exclude.

Both of the diets were designed to be low-calorie and match the energy needs of the individuals. In both diets, around 50–55 percent of calorie intake was derived from carbohydrates, 15–20 percent from protein, and 25–30 percent from fat (with less than 7 percent from saturated fat and fewer than 200 milligrams per day of cholesterol).

There "were no substantial differences," note the authors, between the two diets in the number of servings per week of olive oil, fruits, vegetables, cereals, potatoes, and sweets.

Also, unsurprisingly, the groups reported eating more legumes, eggs, nuts, and dairy foods when they were on the vegetarian diet than when they were on the Mediterranean diet.

The results showed that both diets significantly improved participants' overall "cardiovascular risk profile," although they differed slightly in the detail.

Different impact on cholesterol, triglycerides

Regarding physical measures — such as body mass index (BMI) and body fat — the two diets were "equally effective." The participants lost an average of 4 pounds in body weight and 3 pounds of body fat.

But the diets differed in their impact on some of the biochemical risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Following the vegetarian diet led to a significant reduction in low-density lipoprotein, or "bad," cholesterol. In contrast, following the Mediterranean diet seemed to be more effective at reducing levels of triglycerides.

Nevertheless, "the take-home message our study," says Prof. Sofi, "is that a low-calorie lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet can help patients reduce cardiovascular risk about the same as a low-calorie Mediterranean diet."

Both diets were 'consistent with guidelines'

In an accompanying editorial, Cheryl A. M. Anderson — who is an associate professor of preventive medicine at the University of California, San Diego — comments on the value of the study.

She points out that both the low-calorie vegetarian diet and low-calorie Mediterranean diet "are consistent" with guidelines and "may offer a possible solution to the ongoing challenges to prevent and manage obesity and cardiovascular diseases."

There is an urgent need to find more solutions to tackle the obesity epidemic. Worldwide, there are more than 650 million people with obesity — which is around three times as many as there were in 1975.

In the United States, obesity affects 37 percent of adults, and it is implicated in some of the leading causes of preventable deaths, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and some types of cancer.

A growing body of 'persuasive evidence'

The new study adds to a body of "persuasive evidence" that there are several dietary patterns that offer a healthful way to reduce weight and improve cardiovascular health, Prof. Anderson explains.

Also, she notes that such patterns "should include a few basic principles such as being nutrient dense; rich in vegetables and fruits, whole grains, legumes, and nuts; low in refined grains and commercially processed foods with added sugars, saturated fats, and sodium; sustainable; culturally relevant; and enjoyable."

Prof. Anderson suggests that there is a need for future studies to compare the effects of the two diets in populations with a higher heart disease risk.

These should also explore "whether or not healthful versions of traditional diets around the world that emphasize fresh foods and limit sugars, saturated fats, and sodium can prevent and manage obesity and cardiovascular diseases," she urges.

"People have more than one choice for a heart-healthy diet."

Prof. Francesco Sofi