Nearly 4% of deaths (and about 433,000 people a year) worldwide are due to spending more than 3 hours a day sitting, according to one study.

Multiple studies over the past decade have shown that spending too much time sitting can increase the risk of death, regardless of exercise. The new study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, now estimates mortality rates for 54 countries, using data from 2002 to 2011, and found that nearly 4% of deaths are due to sitting.

It is important to reduce sedentary behavior to prevent premature death worldwide, said lead study author Leandro Rezende at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.

Mr Leandro also stressed that “cutting the amount of time we sit could increase life expectancy by 0.20 years in the countries analysed”.

Results showed that more than 60% of people worldwide spend more than 3 hours a day sitting (the average for adults is 4.7 hours/day) and this is the culprit behind 3.8% of deaths.

Among the countries studied, the most deaths were in the Western Pacific region, followed by European countries, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Americas and Southeast Asia.

The highest rates were found in Lebanon (11.6%), the Netherlands (7.6%) and Denmark (6.9%), while the lowest rates were in Mexico (0.6%), Myanmar (1.3%) and Bhutan (1.6%).

According to the authors, reducing sitting time by an estimated two hours (or half the current amount) could reduce mortality by 2.3%. Even a more modest reduction in sitting time, by 10% or half an hour a day, could have an immediate impact on all-cause mortality (0.6%) in the countries assessed.

According to TNO