Post by djrebel on Feb 15, 2010 2:18:10 GMT -5
STORY
Warning: Sitting at your computer can kill you
Tom Spears
The Ottawa Citizen
Saturday, February 01, 2003
ADVERTISEMENT
Sitting at your computer for hours on end can kill you, says a New Zealand doctor who has added one more way modern life can be fatal even when you're not doing anything.
Make that especially when you're not doing anything, says Dr. Richard Beasley of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand.
Human beings were designed to move around, not to sit still for hours, he says.
Recently he treated a young New Zealand man who spent up to 18 hours a day in front of his computer.
The techie was in serious trouble. Because he wasn't moving around, blood pooled in his legs until a "massive" clot formed in a vein there.
The clot then travelled to his lungs and lodged there, nearly killing him. He has now recovered.
The doctor has even coined a new medical term: e-thrombosis.
But in fact, it's a variation on something air travellers have been warned about for years: Sitting too long without moving one's legs can cause the formation of the clots that doctors call a deep venous thrombosis, and which are life-threatening. (Doctors nickname the airline variety "economy class syndrome," because the tighter spaces in economy class don't let passengers move their legs enough to keep the blood moving.)
And last year a Canadian doctor identified another danger of not moving. An elderly patient talked for nearly an hour on the phone and suffered a stroke; by keeping his head tilted sideways over the receiver he had put pressure on a blood vessel in his neck, cutting off blood flow to the brain.
E-thrombosis may be the 21st-century variant of the attacks that began in airplanes, says a note from the European Respiratory Journal, a medical journal that publishes Beasley's work in its latest edition.
And Beasley warns there may be plenty of other cases that medical researchers haven't yet recognized.
"It may be similar to the situation with the risk of blood clots with long distance air travel -- it was not until there was publicity with individual cases that the real extent of the problem was recognized," he said.
His advice is simple: Keep moving. Go for a walk periodically to keep the circulation moving, or at least move your legs around under the desk.
© Copyright 2003 Vancouver Sun
Warning: Sitting at your computer can kill you
Tom Spears
The Ottawa Citizen
Saturday, February 01, 2003
ADVERTISEMENT
Sitting at your computer for hours on end can kill you, says a New Zealand doctor who has added one more way modern life can be fatal even when you're not doing anything.
Make that especially when you're not doing anything, says Dr. Richard Beasley of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand.
Human beings were designed to move around, not to sit still for hours, he says.
Recently he treated a young New Zealand man who spent up to 18 hours a day in front of his computer.
The techie was in serious trouble. Because he wasn't moving around, blood pooled in his legs until a "massive" clot formed in a vein there.
The clot then travelled to his lungs and lodged there, nearly killing him. He has now recovered.
The doctor has even coined a new medical term: e-thrombosis.
But in fact, it's a variation on something air travellers have been warned about for years: Sitting too long without moving one's legs can cause the formation of the clots that doctors call a deep venous thrombosis, and which are life-threatening. (Doctors nickname the airline variety "economy class syndrome," because the tighter spaces in economy class don't let passengers move their legs enough to keep the blood moving.)
And last year a Canadian doctor identified another danger of not moving. An elderly patient talked for nearly an hour on the phone and suffered a stroke; by keeping his head tilted sideways over the receiver he had put pressure on a blood vessel in his neck, cutting off blood flow to the brain.
E-thrombosis may be the 21st-century variant of the attacks that began in airplanes, says a note from the European Respiratory Journal, a medical journal that publishes Beasley's work in its latest edition.
And Beasley warns there may be plenty of other cases that medical researchers haven't yet recognized.
"It may be similar to the situation with the risk of blood clots with long distance air travel -- it was not until there was publicity with individual cases that the real extent of the problem was recognized," he said.
His advice is simple: Keep moving. Go for a walk periodically to keep the circulation moving, or at least move your legs around under the desk.
© Copyright 2003 Vancouver Sun
