MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
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Dr. Jacquelyn Kulinski[/caption]
Jacquelyn Kulinski, MD
Assistant Professor
Division of Cardiovascular Medicine
Medical College of Wisconsin
Milwaukee, WI 53226
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Kulinski: Sedentary behavior, or “sitting disease”, is increasingly recognized as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and early death. Many of these associations appear to be independent of exercise activity. The mechanisms through which sedentary behavior influences cardiovascular risk are largely unknown. Therefore, we investigated the association between accelerometer measured sedentary behavior and coronary artery calcium (CAC), a marker of subclinical heart disease, in over 2,000 participants using data from the Dallas Heart Study (DHS) population.
We found a significant association between increasing sitting time and CAC in a population without prior history of cardiovascular disease. This association was independent of measured exercise activity, traditional risk factors, and even socioeconomic factors. Each hour of
sedentary time was associated with a 16% increase in CAC burden. Interestingly, the association between exercise and CAC was not significant in the fully-adjusted model.