The “15 Step Formula” to Improve Metabolic Health

The sedentary and still life that millions of workers have to live every day can wreak havoc on our metabolic health.

High sugar levels and skyrocketing cholesterol are the consequences of the most abundant lifestyle in our world, and they affect even a majority of people who seem healthy.

Now a new study puts on the table a solution that is as simple as it is feasible:

– Stopping every 30 minutes, standing up and moving can drastically reduce the health impact of sitting for hours each day.

Of course, any other exercise would work, such as climbing stairs, doing squats, jumping, doing push-ups against the wall... if possible for 3 minutes. But the simplest thing in any office is the 15-step formula.

It's not complicated or slows down your workflow. It would be something like taking a short detour to go to the bathroom.

Small but clarifying study

The objective was to verify what consequences it would have to insert small but frequent periods of exercise in the middle of completely sedentary days.

They involved middle-aged white-collar workers at high risk of type 2 diabetes and concluded that the "15-step formula," twice an hour, represents the minimum amount of movement needed to protect metabolic health.

But be careful that we are talking about minimums, not the ideal time that we should dedicate each day to moving.

Six and a half hours sitting each day

According to epidemiological studies, workers spend a minimum of six and a half hours sitting each workday. And most of that time is almost never interrupted.

So this daily immobility ends up crushing our metabolic health.

As the authors of the study say:

– “Every waking hour spent in sedentary positions, that is, sitting or lying down, increases the risk of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.”

They blame the muscles for it. Especially those in the legs, which are the largest in our body and usually, or should, be active and hungry.

But since we are still, they barely contract and that means that they do not need to burn almost any "fuel", they absorb very little sugar and they do not release biochemical substances that would normally help break down fatty acids in the blood.

Consequently, when we sit for long hours at our table, blood sugar and cholesterol accumulate in our bloodstream.

Luckily, if we take frequent breaks or apply the "15-step formula" we can improve controls.

Control from 15 steps

The fieldwork for this study was conducted in Stockholm, with middle-aged men and women whose jobs were desk jobs and also had a history of obesity.

People at high risk of suffering from problems such as diabetes. And after checking their health, they were put on activity monitors for a week so they could see their numbers.

After that, half of the volunteers continued their normal lives and the rest downloaded a smartphone app that alerted them every 30 minutes during the workday to get up and be active.

The app needed them to take a minimum of 15 steps to record their movement as an activity break.

The experiment continued for three weeks, after which everyone returned to the lab for another round of metabolic testing.

Results

The researchers found that those who continued with their normal lives showed continued problems with blood sugar control and cholesterol levels.

However, those who had stood up and moved while working showed lower fasting blood sugar levels in the morning, meaning their bodies controlled sugar better overnight.

Additionally, their blood sugar also stabilized throughout the day, with fewer spikes and dips, and the amount of beneficial HDL cholesterol in their bloodstream increased.

They were slight improvements, but over time they could mean the difference between ending up sick with type 2 diabetes or not.

Conclusions

The “15-step formula” is a good idea, but it clearly improves if we increase the amount of exercise and maintain the regularity of getting up every half hour.

Because in the study it was also clear that the most active people achieved better results, and that 75 steps are better than 15.

Recommendations

Dr. Erik Näslund, a professor at the Karolinska Institutet who supervised this study, offered two pieces of advice to anyone concerned about overwork and their metabolic health.

• Download an app or set an alarm on your work computer or phone to remind you every half hour that you need to wake up. And do it.

• Try to keep moving outside of work hours because “it is important to introduce more physical activity into our lives.”

• And he provided some very simple tricks: "take the stairs instead of taking the elevator, get off the bus one stop earlier when you're coming home..."