subject: Will Everything Eventually Be Bad For Us? [print this page] Physical inactivity causes 1 in 10 deaths worldwide. According to a series of studies published in the British medical journal The Lancet, the dangers of inactivity equal those of smoking and obesity. Harvard researchers reported inactivity caused increased deaths from coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, breast cancer and colon cancer - causing more than 5.3 million deaths in 2008. Supposedly, 33% of adults and 80% of adolescents worldwide have increased risks of disease because of inactivity. Inactivity increases with age, is more common in women, as well as in high-income countries. Basically, inactivity makes us "sitting targets" for disease.
Sitting, itself, is bad for our health. A study published in the British Medical Journal Open found if Americans limited their sitting to less than 3 hours daily, they could add 2 years to their life expectancy. We could add another 1.38 years if we limited television watching to 2 hours. Sitting is such a common behavior it affects our bodies as much as smoking and obesity. There is a lot of overlap between sedentary behavior and poor cardiometabolic markers, which can increase risk of heart disease and diabetes. To improve our health we need to "stand on our own feet".
Tight pants are bad for our health too. They can cause meralgia paresthetica - constriction of a sensory nerve from the pelvis that causes numbness down the leg and into the foot. Repeated episodes of this can cause permanent damage. Then there's "tight pants syndrome", which causes abdominal discomfort, heartburn and belching. Pressure on the abdomen prevents food from digesting properly. Finally, in men tight pants can cause testicular torsion, in which a testicle gets twisted and circulation can be cut off. When our body hurts, it's trying to tell us something. We should listen - and not be "clothed minded".
Traffic noise increases heart attack risk. In a study published in the journal PLoS ONE 500,000 participants were tracked for 10 years. They reported where they lived, whether they'd had a heart attack, what they ate and how they exercised. After factoring in gender, smoking, fruit and vegetable intake, body mass index and air pollution, the researchers concluded heart attack risk increased between 40-80 decibels. In fact, for every 10 decibels of added noise, heart attack risk increased 12%. Because traffic noise raises blood pressure, increases stress hormones and disturbs sleep, avoiding it as much as possible is "sound advice".
