Lack of exercise is just as harmful as smoking and drinking alcohol!

We often hear that sleep is the best medicine. But recent research shows that sleeping too much can also be harmful to health. Sleeping more than 9 hours a night – combined with excessive sitting during the day and lack of exercise – can be just as damaging to your health as smoking and drinking alcohol.

People who are sedentary are four times more likely to die prematurely.

In recent years, there has been growing evidence that prolonged sitting is detrimental to health.

The University of Sydney study is the first to examine the impact of both sleep and prolonged sitting on health.

Dr. Melody Ding and her colleagues examined the health behaviors of more than 230,000 participants in the '45 and Up Study' - Australia's largest study on health as we age.

Research suggests we need to take these behaviors (sleeping and sitting) as seriously as we take risk factors like alcohol consumption and unhealthy eating.

Researchers analyzed lifestyle behaviors known to increase the risk of disease – including smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, a monotonous diet, and lack of physical activity.

They also added too much sitting time and too little or too much sleep to the equation.

The authors also examined different combinations of risk factors to identify which groups of factors were most likely to increase the risk of premature death, and determined that excessive sleep, prolonged sitting, and lack of exercise were the “deadly trinity.”

However, the study also found that lack of sleep – less than 7 hours per night – also quadruples the risk of premature death when combined with heavy smoking and drinking.

Other harmful combinations include a sedentary lifestyle and excessive sleep; a sedentary lifestyle and excessive sitting; and smoking along with excessive alcohol consumption.

The combination of excessive sleep and sedentary lifestyles – and lack of exercise – is just as dangerous as smoking and excessive alcohol consumption. Both combinations are high-risk factors for disease.

Professor Adrian Bauman, co-author of the study, stated: “The message from this research to physicians, health policymakers, and researchers is that if we want to design public health programs to reduce the burden and cost of lifestyle diseases, we need to focus on how these risk factors work together, rather than on each factor individually.”

Noncommunicable diseases – including heart disease, diabetes, and cancer – now kill more than 38 million people worldwide. These diseases cause more deaths than infectious diseases.

According to dantri.com.vn