Standing desk health benefits may not stand the test of time, study finds

Office workers around the world have embraced standing desks as a passive way to improve their health, though the concrete benefits may not stand up to scrutiny, new research from the University of Sydney has found.

Office workers around the world have embraced standing desks as a passive way to improve their health, though the concrete benefits may not stand up to scrutiny, new research from the University of Sydney has found.

Published this month, the study examined accelerometer data on 83,000 people from the United Kingdom-based health database, U.K. Biobank, reviewing time spent sitting and standing, comparing for rates of major cardiovascular and circulatory disease.

Study subjects wore what the university called "research-grade wrist-worn wearables similar to a smartwatch."

During a roughly seven-year period of data, researchers found that remaining stationary for more than 12 hours per day was associated with higher risk of heart disease, heart failure and stroke, but did not find a notable relationship that was particular to standing.

Instead, extended time standing was associated with a measurable increase in risk for orthostatic circulatory conditions, such as varicose veins, hypotension and venous ulcers. This was also true for sitting.

“The key takeaway is that standing for too long will not offset an otherwise sedentary lifestyle and could be risky for some people in terms of circulatory health," Matthew Ahmadi, lead author of the study, said in a University of Sydney release.

That's not to say that there's zero difference in risk between sitting and standing, though. Sitting time that exceeded 12 hours per day had a slightly higher rate of increased risk per hour compared with stationary time in general, and the published journal article notes that the "deleterious associations of overall stationary time were primarily driven by sitting."