January 17, 2025 • 25 mins
In this new #StudyFinds episode of #ProveItPod, Dr. Matt Law has a short but sill unreasonable tangent about research dissemination followed by an investigation into a real workplace hazard. Like seriously. It's actually about #safety this time. And #health. Are you sitting down? Might actually be time to stop that.
Episode Resources:
Study asks: How much sedentary time is too much?
Accelerometer-Measured Sedentary Behavior and Risk of Future Cardiovascular Disease
Ajufo, E., Kany, S., Rämö, J. T., Churchill, T. W., Guseh, J. S., Aragam, K. G., Ellinor, P. T., & Khurshid, S. (2024). Accelerometer-measured sedentary behavior and risk of future cardiovascular disease. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2024.10.065
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Did you folks miss me?
I'm so sorry to leave you hanging like
that.
The holidays are over, it's a new year,
and now it's an all-new prove it to me.
(00:46):
Hello everyone,
and welcome to Prove It To Me.
I'm your host, Dr.
Matt Law.
So it turns out,
podcasting is difficult.
I mean,
maybe if I just wanted to spew utter
nonsense about meaningless bullshit,
it would be easier.
Like,
this really is complicated and time
-consuming.
Over the past few weeks,
(01:07):
I've developed a much greater
appreciation for those true crime
podcasts,
or even the ones that aren't about
crime,
but require a lot of investigative
reporting.
Setting up interviews,
writing everything down,
putting it together in a logical story
form timeline to keep the audience
engaged,
these things are legitimately the
culmination of years of work.
(01:28):
And what do we do?
We binge it in six hours.
We love the stories,
but we don't always take the time to
appreciate all the work that went into
it.
And I don't even know what these folks
get paid,
but divided up over the hours spent on
content creation and production,
it can't be phenomenal.
And here I am,
over in my dark little corner,
working on a niche podcast that I truly
(01:49):
believe is something we need.
I am super passionate about research.
True research.
Studies that are methodical in nature,
experimental in nature, collaborate.
collecting data to better understand
the relationships between phenomena in
this crazy complex world, to me,
this work is exciting.
The challenge is that it takes a lot to
(02:11):
make it exciting for the masses.
Something you probably noticed in my
first couple of Study Finds episodes,
the real research is super in-depth,
takes a lot of time,
and usually only ends up concluding one
or two tiny little facts that barely
move the needle on our understanding of
these relationships between concepts.
Then the good studies will say, quote,
(02:33):
we need more research in this area.
That's frustratingly boring.
That's why when we read news articles
that summarize the abstracts of big
research projects,
they almost have to embellish a little,
otherwise no one would read it.
Not only that,
I've said this before that it's
difficult for the layperson to access
this research.
(02:53):
You have to have academic credentials
or paid access to read the research
we're talking about.
unless it's open access,
in which case the study authors
themselves paid for that privilege.
So we find ourselves in this weird
situation where real,
unembellished research, by default,
ends up being for the researchers.
Not intentionally, but incidentally.
We have this disproportionate number of
(03:15):
folks who are academics themselves
reading the work of other academics and
performing more research themselves to
be read by, mostly, other academics.
It's a never-ending cycle.
And I'm not saying any of this
discredits the merits of the work.
What I'm trying to get across is that,
as a researcher myself,
the intent of my work has always been
(03:37):
to apply my research to practice.
If I statistically analyze the
relationships between two variables and
find a significant relationship that we
didn't know about before,
or if I figure out a way to measure
something that's never been measured
before, that's not for my benefit.
It may benefit another researcher who
wants to take it further,
(03:59):
but that's not necessarily my primary
goal either.
I don't think I'm speaking out of turn
when I say that most researchers' goals
are to improve the way things work in
the real world,
not the theoretical or hypothetical
world.
Look,
I don't currently manage a workplace
safety program,
but I do a lot of research intended to
(04:19):
improve our understanding of workplace
safety.
Does it do any good for that research
to only circulate among other academic
researchers?
No!
They're not the ones facing serious
injuries and fatalities on a daily
basis.
They're not the ones who need the
opportunity to apply new concepts to
really move the needle on improving
workplace safety.
(04:40):
The information provided by this
research needs to reach the people who
are actively managing workplace safety
programs.
They are the ones who will be able to
make a difference based on research
findings.
get the opportunity to learn new
(05:01):
concepts and tools that will help them
prevent serious injuries and fatalities
and organizational risks.
You might say conferences are a good
outlet.
It's true.
I love a good professional development
conference.
I routinely present my research at a
lot of them.
However,
not everybody gets to go to these.
For example,
(05:21):
I know the American Society of Safety
Professionals had a record-breaking 6
,000
attendees at their National Professional
Development Conference in Denver in
2024.
That's great,
but that's still only a small fraction
of their total membership,
if you assume that all attendees are
members,
and an even smaller fraction of the
total number of safety professionals
(05:42):
working in the United States alone.
Another thing about conferences,
and I'm not necessarily calling out any
specific conference here,
I'm only speaking on my collective
experience with conferences in general.
As an attendee,
you can find a lot of good sessions
that present solid research with a lot
of evidence.
Unfortunately,
(06:02):
these sessions can get lost among the
delusion of sessions that are plagued
with topics that are really just these
big,
sexy ideas but present absolutely no
evidence or actionable takeaways.
They might get great reviews because
the speaker is engaging, but really,
nobody learns shit and none of it is
(06:23):
helping actually improve the
profession.
Again,
I'm not calling anyone out specifically,
but if you're like me and you've
attended these conferences,
you probably know what I'm talking
about.
I know,
as a researcher and a routine speaker,
I get frustrated when my evidence-based
information gets lost in the sauce.
(06:44):
With all of this,
we can get good research out to the
masses at these conferences,
but the reach is limited and sometimes
diluted.
So what else do we have?
You could say webinars.
Listen,
I have nothing against webinars or
virtual conferences,
but there are limitations to these too.
I mean,
is anyone else flooded with requests to
(07:05):
attend a webinar or is that just me?
I mean,
after I've sat on virtual calls all
day,
the last thing I want to do is jump on
another platform to attend another
webinar that may or may not be useful
and is probably just going to have
frustrating technical issues anyway.
I mean, just to be safe,
I'm going to log in and get credit for
my certificate of attendance,
(07:26):
but really,
I'm intermittently listening while I
answer emails or get other projects
done.
At one time,
I feel like webinars were a cool new
medium, and during the pandemic,
we probably saw a record attendance for
these things.
Now I'm very picky about both attending
webinars and presenting on webinars.
(07:48):
I'm sure a lot of other folks are too.
So now what?
And I'm not talking right now about
writing and publishing.
research.
We're kind of assuming that's just
happening.
But we already talked about the
difficulty in accessing that stuff by
the folks who really need to read it.
I'm going on this entire tangent to say
that there is a real opportunity to use
a different medium for dissemination of
(08:09):
research.
It's this.
It's podcasting.
And yes,
even the podcasting world is flooded
with content.
I mean,
if I have a choice of listening to my
favorite comedians talk about
meaningless stuff or listening to
academics talk about research.
Okay, yeah,
I might also prioritize the former
rather than the latter in my daily
listening habits.
(08:30):
But here's the deal.
You don't have to have special access
to listen to podcasts.
You don't have to listen to them in
real time.
You can access podcasts in the library
years after they are published.
You can talk for five minutes about
your research or you can go on for
hours.
And if you don't want to be on video,
you don't even have to fix your hair.
(08:51):
By the way, in case you were wondering,
it does take 6 different products,
but only 10 minutes to do this hair.
Gentlemen,
you too can have fantastic hair in only
10 minutes or less.
You don't have to remain filled with
envy just because Dr.
Law has better hair than you.
Okay, back to the tangent.
This is a call to researchers and
consumers of research.
(09:11):
Let's get this stuff to a larger
audience through podcasting.
Let's make the effort to bridge the gap
between research and practice by
getting evidence-based solutions out in
an easily accessible way to the people
who can make the difference.
If you have research to share,
or if you recently read a study that
you want to talk about,
whether to praise it or critique it,
(09:33):
send me an email at contact at
proveitpod.com.
Yes,
this whole podcasting thing has proven
to be difficult and time-consuming for
me,
but I truly believe this little niche
podcast is for the greater good.
I want our practitioners to learn about
the work that is happening in academia.
I want them to be able to learn how we
(09:55):
are thinking about different
relationships and how to measure
concepts.
I want them to be able to take these
things and apply them to their work,
especially when we're talking about
workplace safety.
I firmly believe that protecting
people, property,
and the environment will not happen
because of all these big ideas and
theories and conceptual models that
(10:16):
have absolutely no data or evidence to
back them up.
It will happen because of good research
that gets placed into the hands of
practicing professionals from the field
to the plant floor to the c-suite and
who can make real change happen with
actionable evidence in hand.
Let's do that.
Let's get research out to the people
who can make a difference.
(10:38):
When we do that,
I can cut back on these silly little
study finds episodes,
bashing news outlets for over
-embellishing research and making you
think that you're about to die because
of your sleeping and eating habits.
But,
while I do have some researchers in the
pipeline who want to talk to you about
some of the great work they're doing,
I don't want to deny you your regular
(10:59):
dose of research that you've come to
know and love in the few short episodes
that I've undoubtedly had your
undivided attention.
Right?
You're not doing other stuff like
driving while listening to this,
are you?
You better be paying attention to me.
I demand attention!
No, I'm just kidding.
Actually,
I find for most things that I listen
to,
I pay attention even better when I'm
(11:20):
doing something else,
like house chores, exercising, driving.
Personally,
I'm more likely to get sidetracked and
stop paying attention when I'm just
sitting and listening.
I apologize to every professor in whose
lectures I totally spaced out.
Spoiler alert,
it was every single one of you.
Not your fault.
As it turns out,
(11:41):
my attention span isn't the only thing
that suffers when I'm sedentary.
It could also be my heart health.
Now listen,
I know some of you are looking for
safety research.
Guess what?
I actually did that this time.
I went to the National Safety Council's
safety and health magazine for this
one.
So take that.
Here's the headline.
(12:01):
Study asks.
Okay.
It's not study fines.
It's study asks, but close enough,
right?
Okay.
Study asks,
how much sedentary time is too much?
Now look,
I'm actually going to give safety and
health magazines and credit here.
First,
this headline draws me in without
drawing an overzealous conclusion.
(12:23):
That's good.
I don't have to bash another news
source for milking everything they can
get out of an abstract just for some
clickbait.
Second,
I'm going to argue that this is legitimately
a safety topic.
No, we're not talking about big,
sexy hazards like arc flash,
confined spaces,
or working at elevated heights,
but we are talking about a legitimate
(12:45):
work hazard.
How many jobs out there require sitting
at a desk all day to perform work?
A lot.
If you're listening,
you might be one of those who faced
this hazard.
I know I am.
I do a lot of sitting for work.
Sedentary time is built into my work
process.
Now, this article is relatively short,
so we're not going to spend a lot of
(13:06):
time here.
Basically,
the author is talking about a recently
published study that looked at data
from nearly 90,000
people in the United Kingdom that wore
activity trackers,
and they found that people who were
sedentary for more than 10.6 hours of
the day were at higher risk of
cardiovascular issues such as atrial
fibrillation, heart failure,
first heart attack,
(13:26):
and death from cardiovascular causes.
The last part here that really got my
attention was this, quote,
even those who also got the recommended
150 minutes of moderate to vigorous
physical activity a week were affected,
end quote.
Okay, now I'm mad.
I do exercise.
(13:46):
A lot.
I try to get at least 30 minutes a day,
which means I almost always meet the
recommended minimum 150 minutes per
week.
I do this because I know I should,
and it makes me feel better physically,
mentally, and emotionally.
But I've just gotten handed a doozy.
All of that may mean nothing if I'm
(14:07):
sedentary most of the day.
Am I really in trouble?
Am I really heading to an early grave,
even in the face of all the exercise I
so faithfully do?
All right,
let's click into the full study now.
Unfortunately,
this is another one that's not open
access.
I had to use my academic credentials.
(14:27):
I'll include the link to both the
Safety and Health magazine article and
the study abstract in the episode
notes.
But you'll have to get creative if you
want full access to the study I'm
reading.
The study title is Accelerometer
Measured Sedentary Behavior and Risk of
Future Cardiovascular Disease.
and it was published in the Journal of
the American College of Cardiology.
(14:50):
I'm not going to hold you in suspense
here.
This looks to me like a well-done
study.
In the section for funding support and
author disclosures,
I don't see any real conflicts of
interest.
There's funding from both private and
public organizations,
but realistically,
no one is trying to sell me anything
with this topic.
I can't buy less sedentary behavior
like I can buy, for example,
(15:10):
maple syrup.
Let's talk about the study
participants.
Apparently,
the UK has this really cool thing,
I mean, I think it's really cool,
called the UK Biobank.
They recruited a little over a half
million participants from 2006 to 2010
to be part of a national data set.
(15:32):
It's all voluntary and consensual,
so there's no issues there,
but this is a really cool way to get a
bunch of folks and build up a bunch of
data for use in a bunch of studies at a
later date.
So from 2013 to 2015,
about a quarter million UK Biobank
participants were invited to
participate in the study using
accelerometers,
(15:53):
so basically wearable fitness trackers,
and slightly over 100,000
submitted data.
They tracked sleep, sedentary activity,
light physical activity, and MVPA,
which is moderate to vigorous physical
activity,
otherwise known as good old-fashioned
exercise.
After excluding some of the sample for
(16:14):
insufficient tracker data,
they ended up with just short of 90,000
participants.
Now, with such a large sample size,
this ended up being a healthy mix of
folks,
but the average age was 62 years old,
plus or minus eight years,
and 56% were women.
So,
(16:34):
what are the outcomes they measured aside
from the activity?
They looked at outcomes of atrial
fibrillation, heart failure,
myocardial infarction,
and cardiovascular mortality.
Meaning death by cardiovascular disease
Folks I have to tell you as I was
writing all of this down my legs were
falling asleep I had to stand up a few
(16:55):
times I don't know if it was mental or
physical thing,
but I'm getting really self-conscious
about my sedentary habits now So to
create their comparison groups they
used quartiles based on sedentary time
per day What does that mean basically
if you put average sedentary time per
day on a horizontal line?
(17:15):
And you distribute the participants on
that line you are able to look at the
distribution curve otherwise known as a
bell curve and Then split the
distribution into four equal parts from
the middle which is the median
sedentary time that median sedentary
time was 9.4 hours per day each Each
(17:35):
quartile had roughly 22,000
participants The bottom quartile of
participants had less than 8.2 hours of
sedentary time per day.
The second quartile had 8.2 to 9.4
hours of sedentary time per day,
the third quartile had 9.4 to 10.6
hours per day,
and the top quartile had greater than 10
(17:57):
.6 hours per day.
In the sample characteristics chart,
you can see that the demographics such
as age, sex, race,
and education are pretty evenly
distributed across the quartiles.
Some interesting things to note just by
reading the chart and not by
statistical analysis,
average body mass index increases with
(18:18):
every quartile step, obesity, diabetes,
and medication for hypertension
increases with every quartile step,
and interestingly alcohol intake also
increases.
So I'm going to gloss over the
statistical analysis portion for the
relationships between variables.
Not because this is unimportant,
(18:39):
but because this is not a statistics
class and I don't want to put everybody
to sleep.
If you want to just take my word for
it,
it looks like they used appropriate statistical
tests to analyze the relationships
between variables and to even check to
make sure those relationships were
real.
So what were the major findings?
(19:02):
Greater sedentary time was associated
with a higher risk of atrial
fibrillation, heart failure,
myocardial infarction,
and cardiovascular mortality.
However,
there are some finer details here to
note.
First,
the results separate out the impact of
sedentary time on atrial fibrillation
and myocardial infarction from the
(19:25):
impact on heart failure and
cardiovascular mortality.
It seems like the impact is larger on
heart failure and cardiovascular
mortality.
Compared to the second quartile,
these are the folks who had 8.2 to 9.6
hours of of sedentary time per day,
sedentary time in the top quartile of
greater than 10.6 hours per day had a 50
(19:47):
% higher risk of heart failure and
cardiovascular mortality.
Furthermore,
there was a substantial increased risk
for those things for every hour beyond
the 10.6,
like the line graph just shoots
straight up in the air.
And these issues seem to be less
affected by meeting the minimum
recommended standard of moderate to
(20:08):
vigorous physical activity per week.
So that's a lot.
By comparison,
if we look at atrial fibrillation and
myocardial infarction,
there was only a 10 to 15% increased
risk in the top quartile versus the
second quartile.
The relationship looked pretty linear,
so no shooting straight up in the air.
(20:29):
And when the models were adjusted for
that moderate to vigorous physical
activity,
those relationships were no longer
observed.
I mean,
if you want to make this super simple.
the authors are going to tell me it's
not quite exactly correct.
Exercise is what affects atrial
fibrillation and myocardial infarction
and sedentary behavior is what affects
(20:50):
heart failure and cardiovascular
mortality.
That's actually oversimplifying,
but not an entirely inaccurate
takeaway.
It's enough to say exercise more and
sit less and you'll be at lower risk
for all of these things.
Limitations to the study.
The authors note that this data doesn't
really tell them what type of sedentary
(21:10):
behavior was observed.
We don't know if the folks were
sedentary at work or if they were
sitting on the couch at home.
Also,
these accelerometers don't always accurately
detect what you're doing.
They can say you're sitting when you're
standing up or they can say you're
standing when you're sitting down.
I'm glad they said that.
In fact,
I can sometimes cheat my Apple watch
(21:31):
when it tells me to stand up by putting
my arm in a certain position while I'm
still sitting.
Also,
physical activity was only measured for
one week.
Oh shoot, I missed that.
My bad folks.
So physical activity was only measured
for one week and they did the follow-up
eight years later.
A lot can change and the authors noted
that longer monitoring would probably
(21:52):
provide more accurate activity
patterns.
The authors specifically note that this
is correlational, not causational,
because there could be confounders.
I glossed over the controls that they
used for confounding factors,
which were pretty good,
but there are always things that can
slip through the cracks.
This is actually a pretty robust
limitation section,
(22:12):
and there are some other things here
that would actually be a great starting
point for additional research,
but the last thing I'll note is the
sample makeup.
The authors say this sample,
as large as it was,
may not be entirely generalizable to
the population.
This is because the study started
several years after the initial
(22:33):
population was recruited,
so because they're still around,
they may already be a healthier
population.
Also,
the sample was disproportionately white,
and based on population data,
these are folks who tend to be
healthier and have better socioeconomic
status.
That's not an opinion.
(22:53):
That's in the data.
Now actually,
if you were to run this experiment
again,
there are ways you can weight the
sample to control for that
disproportionate sample,
but I don't think they did that here.
Alright, gotta tell you folks,
this was another good correlational
study.
Something to think about here from a
workplace safety and wellness
(23:14):
standpoint,
10.6 hours is not a lot of time.
If I have a desk job and an 8 hour work
day,
let's take away an hour for lunch and
bathroom breaks,
I've got 3.6 hours left of sitting
before I hit that number.
Add an hour of commute time and a good
movie or a couple episodes of my
favorite bingeable show,
(23:34):
I'm at that magic bad number already.
So the question is...
is it on the employer to protect
workers from cardiovascular disease?
If sedentary time is built into the
work process,
is the employer responsible for that
hazard?
Why don't you folks tell me in the
comments?
Until next time, I'm Dr.
(23:56):
Matt Law,
this has been another episode of Study
Finds on the Prove It To Me podcast.
Take care and stay safe, everyone.
(24:21):
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(24:41):
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(25:02):
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(25:23):
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Did you folks miss me?
I'm so sorry to leave you hanging like
that.
The holidays are over, it's a new year,
and now it's an all-new prove it to me.
(00:46):
Hello everyone,
and welcome to Prove It To Me.
I'm your host, Dr.
Matt Law.
So it turns out,
podcasting is difficult.
I mean,
maybe if I just wanted to spew utter
nonsense about meaningless bullshit,
it would be easier.
Like,
this really is complicated and time
-consuming.
Over the past few weeks,
(01:07):
I've developed a much greater
appreciation for those true crime
podcasts,
or even the ones that aren't about
crime,
but require a lot of investigative
reporting.
Setting up interviews,
writing everything down,
putting it together in a logical story
form timeline to keep the audience
engaged,
these things are legitimately the
culmination of years of work.
(01:28):
And what do we do?
We binge it in six hours.
We love the stories,
but we don't always take the time to
appreciate all the work that went into
it.
And I don't even know what these folks
get paid,
but divided up over the hours spent on
content creation and production,
it can't be phenomenal.
And here I am,
over in my dark little corner,
working on a niche podcast that I truly
(01:49):
believe is something we need.
I am super passionate about research.
True research.
Studies that are methodical in nature,
experimental in nature, collaborate.
collecting data to better understand
the relationships between phenomena in
this crazy complex world, to me,
this work is exciting.
The challenge is that it takes a lot to
(02:11):
make it exciting for the masses.
Something you probably noticed in my
first couple of Study Finds episodes,
the real research is super in-depth,
takes a lot of time,
and usually only ends up concluding one
or two tiny little facts that barely
move the needle on our understanding of
these relationships between concepts.
Then the good studies will say, quote,
(02:33):
we need more research in this area.
That's frustratingly boring.
That's why when we read news articles
that summarize the abstracts of big
research projects,
they almost have to embellish a little,
otherwise no one would read it.
Not only that,
I've said this before that it's
difficult for the layperson to access
this research.
(02:53):
You have to have academic credentials
or paid access to read the research
we're talking about.
unless it's open access,
in which case the study authors
themselves paid for that privilege.
So we find ourselves in this weird
situation where real,
unembellished research, by default,
ends up being for the researchers.
Not intentionally, but incidentally.
We have this disproportionate number of
(03:15):
folks who are academics themselves
reading the work of other academics and
performing more research themselves to
be read by, mostly, other academics.
It's a never-ending cycle.
And I'm not saying any of this
discredits the merits of the work.
What I'm trying to get across is that,
as a researcher myself,
the intent of my work has always been
(03:37):
to apply my research to practice.
If I statistically analyze the
relationships between two variables and
find a significant relationship that we
didn't know about before,
or if I figure out a way to measure
something that's never been measured
before, that's not for my benefit.
It may benefit another researcher who
wants to take it further,
(03:59):
but that's not necessarily my primary
goal either.
I don't think I'm speaking out of turn
when I say that most researchers' goals
are to improve the way things work in
the real world,
not the theoretical or hypothetical
world.
Look,
I don't currently manage a workplace
safety program,
but I do a lot of research intended to
(04:19):
improve our understanding of workplace
safety.
Does it do any good for that research
to only circulate among other academic
researchers?
No!
They're not the ones facing serious
injuries and fatalities on a daily
basis.
They're not the ones who need the
opportunity to apply new concepts to
really move the needle on improving
workplace safety.
(04:40):
The information provided by this
research needs to reach the people who
are actively managing workplace safety
programs.
They are the ones who will be able to
make a difference based on research
findings.
get the opportunity to learn new
(05:01):
concepts and tools that will help them
prevent serious injuries and fatalities
and organizational risks.
You might say conferences are a good
outlet.
It's true.
I love a good professional development
conference.
I routinely present my research at a
lot of them.
However,
not everybody gets to go to these.
For example,
(05:21):
I know the American Society of Safety
Professionals had a record-breaking 6
,000
attendees at their National Professional
Development Conference in Denver in
2024.
That's great,
but that's still only a small fraction
of their total membership,
if you assume that all attendees are
members,
and an even smaller fraction of the
total number of safety professionals
(05:42):
working in the United States alone.
Another thing about conferences,
and I'm not necessarily calling out any
specific conference here,
I'm only speaking on my collective
experience with conferences in general.
As an attendee,
you can find a lot of good sessions
that present solid research with a lot
of evidence.
Unfortunately,
(06:02):
these sessions can get lost among the
delusion of sessions that are plagued
with topics that are really just these
big,
sexy ideas but present absolutely no
evidence or actionable takeaways.
They might get great reviews because
the speaker is engaging, but really,
nobody learns shit and none of it is
(06:23):
helping actually improve the
profession.
Again,
I'm not calling anyone out specifically,
but if you're like me and you've
attended these conferences,
you probably know what I'm talking
about.
I know,
as a researcher and a routine speaker,
I get frustrated when my evidence-based
information gets lost in the sauce.
(06:44):
With all of this,
we can get good research out to the
masses at these conferences,
but the reach is limited and sometimes
diluted.
So what else do we have?
You could say webinars.
Listen,
I have nothing against webinars or
virtual conferences,
but there are limitations to these too.
I mean,
is anyone else flooded with requests to
(07:05):
attend a webinar or is that just me?
I mean,
after I've sat on virtual calls all
day,
the last thing I want to do is jump on
another platform to attend another
webinar that may or may not be useful
and is probably just going to have
frustrating technical issues anyway.
I mean, just to be safe,
I'm going to log in and get credit for
my certificate of attendance,
(07:26):
but really,
I'm intermittently listening while I
answer emails or get other projects
done.
At one time,
I feel like webinars were a cool new
medium, and during the pandemic,
we probably saw a record attendance for
these things.
Now I'm very picky about both attending
webinars and presenting on webinars.
(07:48):
I'm sure a lot of other folks are too.
So now what?
And I'm not talking right now about
writing and publishing.
research.
We're kind of assuming that's just
happening.
But we already talked about the
difficulty in accessing that stuff by
the folks who really need to read it.
I'm going on this entire tangent to say
that there is a real opportunity to use
a different medium for dissemination of
(08:09):
research.
It's this.
It's podcasting.
And yes,
even the podcasting world is flooded
with content.
I mean,
if I have a choice of listening to my
favorite comedians talk about
meaningless stuff or listening to
academics talk about research.
Okay, yeah,
I might also prioritize the former
rather than the latter in my daily
listening habits.
(08:30):
But here's the deal.
You don't have to have special access
to listen to podcasts.
You don't have to listen to them in
real time.
You can access podcasts in the library
years after they are published.
You can talk for five minutes about
your research or you can go on for
hours.
And if you don't want to be on video,
you don't even have to fix your hair.
(08:51):
By the way, in case you were wondering,
it does take 6 different products,
but only 10 minutes to do this hair.
Gentlemen,
you too can have fantastic hair in only
10 minutes or less.
You don't have to remain filled with
envy just because Dr.
Law has better hair than you.
Okay, back to the tangent.
This is a call to researchers and
consumers of research.
(09:11):
Let's get this stuff to a larger
audience through podcasting.
Let's make the effort to bridge the gap
between research and practice by
getting evidence-based solutions out in
an easily accessible way to the people
who can make the difference.
If you have research to share,
or if you recently read a study that
you want to talk about,
whether to praise it or critique it,
(09:33):
send me an email at contact at
proveitpod.com.
Yes,
this whole podcasting thing has proven
to be difficult and time-consuming for
me,
but I truly believe this little niche
podcast is for the greater good.
I want our practitioners to learn about
the work that is happening in academia.
I want them to be able to learn how we
(09:55):
are thinking about different
relationships and how to measure
concepts.
I want them to be able to take these
things and apply them to their work,
especially when we're talking about
workplace safety.
I firmly believe that protecting
people, property,
and the environment will not happen
because of all these big ideas and
theories and conceptual models that
(10:16):
have absolutely no data or evidence to
back them up.
It will happen because of good research
that gets placed into the hands of
practicing professionals from the field
to the plant floor to the c-suite and
who can make real change happen with
actionable evidence in hand.
Let's do that.
Let's get research out to the people
who can make a difference.
(10:38):
When we do that,
I can cut back on these silly little
study finds episodes,
bashing news outlets for over
-embellishing research and making you
think that you're about to die because
of your sleeping and eating habits.
But,
while I do have some researchers in the
pipeline who want to talk to you about
some of the great work they're doing,
I don't want to deny you your regular
(10:59):
dose of research that you've come to
know and love in the few short episodes
that I've undoubtedly had your
undivided attention.
Right?
You're not doing other stuff like
driving while listening to this,
are you?
You better be paying attention to me.
I demand attention!
No, I'm just kidding.
Actually,
I find for most things that I listen
to,
I pay attention even better when I'm
(11:20):
doing something else,
like house chores, exercising, driving.
Personally,
I'm more likely to get sidetracked and
stop paying attention when I'm just
sitting and listening.
I apologize to every professor in whose
lectures I totally spaced out.
Spoiler alert,
it was every single one of you.
Not your fault.
As it turns out,
(11:41):
my attention span isn't the only thing
that suffers when I'm sedentary.
It could also be my heart health.
Now listen,
I know some of you are looking for
safety research.
Guess what?
I actually did that this time.
I went to the National Safety Council's
safety and health magazine for this
one.
So take that.
Here's the headline.
(12:01):
Study asks.
Okay.
It's not study fines.
It's study asks, but close enough,
right?
Okay.
Study asks,
how much sedentary time is too much?
Now look,
I'm actually going to give safety and
health magazines and credit here.
First,
this headline draws me in without
drawing an overzealous conclusion.
(12:23):
That's good.
I don't have to bash another news
source for milking everything they can
get out of an abstract just for some
clickbait.
Second,
I'm going to argue that this is legitimately
a safety topic.
No, we're not talking about big,
sexy hazards like arc flash,
confined spaces,
or working at elevated heights,
but we are talking about a legitimate
(12:45):
work hazard.
How many jobs out there require sitting
at a desk all day to perform work?
A lot.
If you're listening,
you might be one of those who faced
this hazard.
I know I am.
I do a lot of sitting for work.
Sedentary time is built into my work
process.
Now, this article is relatively short,
so we're not going to spend a lot of
(13:06):
time here.
Basically,
the author is talking about a recently
published study that looked at data
from nearly 90,000
people in the United Kingdom that wore
activity trackers,
and they found that people who were
sedentary for more than 10.6 hours of
the day were at higher risk of
cardiovascular issues such as atrial
fibrillation, heart failure,
first heart attack,
(13:26):
and death from cardiovascular causes.
The last part here that really got my
attention was this, quote,
even those who also got the recommended
150 minutes of moderate to vigorous
physical activity a week were affected,
end quote.
Okay, now I'm mad.
I do exercise.
(13:46):
A lot.
I try to get at least 30 minutes a day,
which means I almost always meet the
recommended minimum 150 minutes per
week.
I do this because I know I should,
and it makes me feel better physically,
mentally, and emotionally.
But I've just gotten handed a doozy.
All of that may mean nothing if I'm
(14:07):
sedentary most of the day.
Am I really in trouble?
Am I really heading to an early grave,
even in the face of all the exercise I
so faithfully do?
All right,
let's click into the full study now.
Unfortunately,
this is another one that's not open
access.
I had to use my academic credentials.
(14:27):
I'll include the link to both the
Safety and Health magazine article and
the study abstract in the episode
notes.
But you'll have to get creative if you
want full access to the study I'm
reading.
The study title is Accelerometer
Measured Sedentary Behavior and Risk of
Future Cardiovascular Disease.
and it was published in the Journal of
the American College of Cardiology.
(14:50):
I'm not going to hold you in suspense
here.
This looks to me like a well-done
study.
In the section for funding support and
author disclosures,
I don't see any real conflicts of
interest.
There's funding from both private and
public organizations,
but realistically,
no one is trying to sell me anything
with this topic.
I can't buy less sedentary behavior
like I can buy, for example,
(15:10):
maple syrup.
Let's talk about the study
participants.
Apparently,
the UK has this really cool thing,
I mean, I think it's really cool,
called the UK Biobank.
They recruited a little over a half
million participants from 2006 to 2010
to be part of a national data set.
(15:32):
It's all voluntary and consensual,
so there's no issues there,
but this is a really cool way to get a
bunch of folks and build up a bunch of
data for use in a bunch of studies at a
later date.
So from 2013 to 2015,
about a quarter million UK Biobank
participants were invited to
participate in the study using
accelerometers,
(15:53):
so basically wearable fitness trackers,
and slightly over 100,000
submitted data.
They tracked sleep, sedentary activity,
light physical activity, and MVPA,
which is moderate to vigorous physical
activity,
otherwise known as good old-fashioned
exercise.
After excluding some of the sample for
(16:14):
insufficient tracker data,
they ended up with just short of 90,000
participants.
Now, with such a large sample size,
this ended up being a healthy mix of
folks,
but the average age was 62 years old,
plus or minus eight years,
and 56% were women.
So,
(16:34):
what are the outcomes they measured aside
from the activity?
They looked at outcomes of atrial
fibrillation, heart failure,
myocardial infarction,
and cardiovascular mortality.
Meaning death by cardiovascular disease
Folks I have to tell you as I was
writing all of this down my legs were
falling asleep I had to stand up a few
(16:55):
times I don't know if it was mental or
physical thing,
but I'm getting really self-conscious
about my sedentary habits now So to
create their comparison groups they
used quartiles based on sedentary time
per day What does that mean basically
if you put average sedentary time per
day on a horizontal line?
(17:15):
And you distribute the participants on
that line you are able to look at the
distribution curve otherwise known as a
bell curve and Then split the
distribution into four equal parts from
the middle which is the median
sedentary time that median sedentary
time was 9.4 hours per day each Each
(17:35):
quartile had roughly 22,000
participants The bottom quartile of
participants had less than 8.2 hours of
sedentary time per day.
The second quartile had 8.2 to 9.4
hours of sedentary time per day,
the third quartile had 9.4 to 10.6
hours per day,
and the top quartile had greater than 10
(17:57):
.6 hours per day.
In the sample characteristics chart,
you can see that the demographics such
as age, sex, race,
and education are pretty evenly
distributed across the quartiles.
Some interesting things to note just by
reading the chart and not by
statistical analysis,
average body mass index increases with
(18:18):
every quartile step, obesity, diabetes,
and medication for hypertension
increases with every quartile step,
and interestingly alcohol intake also
increases.
So I'm going to gloss over the
statistical analysis portion for the
relationships between variables.
Not because this is unimportant,
(18:39):
but because this is not a statistics
class and I don't want to put everybody
to sleep.
If you want to just take my word for
it,
it looks like they used appropriate statistical
tests to analyze the relationships
between variables and to even check to
make sure those relationships were
real.
So what were the major findings?
(19:02):
Greater sedentary time was associated
with a higher risk of atrial
fibrillation, heart failure,
myocardial infarction,
and cardiovascular mortality.
However,
there are some finer details here to
note.
First,
the results separate out the impact of
sedentary time on atrial fibrillation
and myocardial infarction from the
(19:25):
impact on heart failure and
cardiovascular mortality.
It seems like the impact is larger on
heart failure and cardiovascular
mortality.
Compared to the second quartile,
these are the folks who had 8.2 to 9.6
hours of of sedentary time per day,
sedentary time in the top quartile of
greater than 10.6 hours per day had a 50
(19:47):
% higher risk of heart failure and
cardiovascular mortality.
Furthermore,
there was a substantial increased risk
for those things for every hour beyond
the 10.6,
like the line graph just shoots
straight up in the air.
And these issues seem to be less
affected by meeting the minimum
recommended standard of moderate to
(20:08):
vigorous physical activity per week.
So that's a lot.
By comparison,
if we look at atrial fibrillation and
myocardial infarction,
there was only a 10 to 15% increased
risk in the top quartile versus the
second quartile.
The relationship looked pretty linear,
so no shooting straight up in the air.
(20:29):
And when the models were adjusted for
that moderate to vigorous physical
activity,
those relationships were no longer
observed.
I mean,
if you want to make this super simple.
the authors are going to tell me it's
not quite exactly correct.
Exercise is what affects atrial
fibrillation and myocardial infarction
and sedentary behavior is what affects
(20:50):
heart failure and cardiovascular
mortality.
That's actually oversimplifying,
but not an entirely inaccurate
takeaway.
It's enough to say exercise more and
sit less and you'll be at lower risk
for all of these things.
Limitations to the study.
The authors note that this data doesn't
really tell them what type of sedentary
(21:10):
behavior was observed.
We don't know if the folks were
sedentary at work or if they were
sitting on the couch at home.
Also,
these accelerometers don't always accurately
detect what you're doing.
They can say you're sitting when you're
standing up or they can say you're
standing when you're sitting down.
I'm glad they said that.
In fact,
I can sometimes cheat my Apple watch
(21:31):
when it tells me to stand up by putting
my arm in a certain position while I'm
still sitting.
Also,
physical activity was only measured for
one week.
Oh shoot, I missed that.
My bad folks.
So physical activity was only measured
for one week and they did the follow-up
eight years later.
A lot can change and the authors noted
that longer monitoring would probably
(21:52):
provide more accurate activity
patterns.
The authors specifically note that this
is correlational, not causational,
because there could be confounders.
I glossed over the controls that they
used for confounding factors,
which were pretty good,
but there are always things that can
slip through the cracks.
This is actually a pretty robust
limitation section,
(22:12):
and there are some other things here
that would actually be a great starting
point for additional research,
but the last thing I'll note is the
sample makeup.
The authors say this sample,
as large as it was,
may not be entirely generalizable to
the population.
This is because the study started
several years after the initial
(22:33):
population was recruited,
so because they're still around,
they may already be a healthier
population.
Also,
the sample was disproportionately white,
and based on population data,
these are folks who tend to be
healthier and have better socioeconomic
status.
That's not an opinion.
(22:53):
That's in the data.
Now actually,
if you were to run this experiment
again,
there are ways you can weight the
sample to control for that
disproportionate sample,
but I don't think they did that here.
Alright, gotta tell you folks,
this was another good correlational
study.
Something to think about here from a
workplace safety and wellness
(23:14):
standpoint,
10.6 hours is not a lot of time.
If I have a desk job and an 8 hour work
day,
let's take away an hour for lunch and
bathroom breaks,
I've got 3.6 hours left of sitting
before I hit that number.
Add an hour of commute time and a good
movie or a couple episodes of my
favorite bingeable show,
(23:34):
I'm at that magic bad number already.
So the question is...
is it on the employer to protect
workers from cardiovascular disease?
If sedentary time is built into the
work process,
is the employer responsible for that
hazard?
Why don't you folks tell me in the
comments?
Until next time, I'm Dr.
(23:56):
Matt Law,
this has been another episode of Study
Finds on the Prove It To Me podcast.
Take care and stay safe, everyone.
(24:21):
Prove It To Me is produced by me,
Matt Law,
original music by West London.
You can find this podcast on Podbean,
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube,
Amazon Music, and iHeartRadio.
Like what you've heard so far?
Please like, subscribe,
and follow wherever you get your
podcasts,
and leave a five-star review on Apple
Podcasts.
Got questions about what we talked
(24:41):
about or research that you want to
share?
Send an email to contact at proveitpod
.com.
The views and opinions expressed in
this podcast are those of the host and
its guests and do not necessarily
represent the official position,
opinion,
or strategies of their employers or
companies.
Examples of research and data analysis
discussed within this podcast are only
examples.
(25:02):
They should not be utilized in the real
world as the only solution available as
they are based on very limited,
often single-use case,
and sometimes dated information.
Assumptions made within this discussion
about research and data analyses are
not necessarily representative of the
position of the host, the guests,
or their employers or companies.
No part of this podcast may be
reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system,
(25:23):
or transmitted in any form or by any
means mechanical, electronic,
recording,
or otherwise without prior written
permission of the creator of the
podcast.
The presentation of the content by the
guests does not necessarily constitute
an active endorsement of the content by
the host.
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