New research shows that cutting back on daily sitting time could prevent back pain from worsening All it took was 40 minutes less sitting time to stop people's back pain from progressing Exercise is a better replacement for sitting than just standing, the researchers added THURSDAY, Oct. 3, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Avoiding couches and chairs might be a good way of keeping your back pain from getting worse, new research suggests. Finnish researchers found that when people with back pain sat even a little less each day, their pain was less like to progress over the next six months.
“If you have a tendency for back pain or excessive sitting and are concerned for your back health, you can try to figure out ways for reducing sitting at work or during leisure time," advised study lead author Jooa Norha , of the University of Turku. There's not been a lot of study into the effects of prolonged sitting on back health and back pain, Norha's group noted. So, they asked 64 overweight or obese people with heart risk factors to reduce the time they spent sitting each day by 40 minutes.
All of the participants were already battling some level of back pain when they entered the study. After six months, "back pain intensity increased significantly more in the control group than in the intervention [less sitting] group in which back pain intensity remained unchanged," Norha's team concluded. He said he wasn't surprised by the finding, which was published recently in the journal BMJ Open .
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