Women have higher diabetes risk if they sit for most of the day

A new study has found that women who stay seated for up to seven hours every day are more prone to developing type 2 diabetes, but that a similar link wasn’t found in men.
Researchers from Leicester University revealed that women that are sedentary for most of the day were at a greater risk from exhibiting the early symptoms of the metabolic condition than people who tend to be more active, and also had higher levels of markers that mean they are on the way to developing diabetes.
The team assessed over 500 men and women of the age of 59 or more about the amount of time spent sitting over the course of a week, helped out by tests on the level of specific chemicals in their bloodstream that are linked with diabetes. It was found that the women who spent the longest time sitting had the higher levels of insulin, as well as higher amounts of C-reactive protein, lepti, adinopectin and interleukin-6, chemicals released by fatty tissue in the abdomen and which indicate problematic inflammation.
Published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the study revealed that women who were seated for between four and seven hours each day were at a higher diabetes risk, but could not pinpoint why there was a gender difference, although it was suggested that women snack more often than men during sedentary behaviour, or because men tend to take part in more robust activity when they do get up and about.