Standing desk health impact examined by researchers
Diabetes risk one facet of standing desk study
A new study at the University of Prince Edward Island is looking at the difference standing at your desk can make to your health, and in particular at your risk of developing diabetes.
Jamie Burr, of UPEI’s kinesiology department, is looking for 24 people who work desk jobs to take part in the study. The study is focusing on people who are overweight.
"We're really curious to see can we reduce somebody's risk of developing diabetes,” said Burr.
`We're tracking people's movement to see do you move more or less as a result of using the desk both at work and when you're away from work as well. Anecdotally people have told us that when they use the desk they feel good they feel energized, they want to go home and move more and we're going to track that."
Half of the study participants will get standing desks and the other half will use regular height desks.
"What we really want to determine is does this actually have a meaningful change in cardio metabolic heath or health risk,” said Burr.
“Nobody's actually looked at that before and we're the first people to do it over the long term. So people have looked at very short term, what happens you know in an hour of using it or something. We want to look and say are we meaningfully changing something that's a little more stable."
The study will last three months.