A new study says that standing up at your desk doesn’t actually decrease your risk of death-by-office, unless you’re physically active otherwise.
新研究表明：除非經常鍛鍊，否則站著工作也不會降低猝死風險。
After several studies asserted that sitting at work all day is slowly killing us, researchers at the University of Exeter and University College London took another look at the claims. The Washington Post reports:
此前，已有多項研究表明，久坐會慢慢地致人死亡。但埃克塞特大學和倫敦大學學院的幾位研究員卻從另一角度進行了研究。華盛頓郵報報導：
Researchers tracked 16 years』 worth of health data from 5,132 people in the Whitehall II study cohort. Participants reported their total time sitting and how long they sat during four different situations: at work, watching television, leisure time and non-television leisure time. Researchers also tracked time spent walking daily and on physical activity.
此次研究的調查對象來自白廳二級定群研究，共5132人。研究人員對他們長達16年的健康數據進行了跟蹤。調查對象需匯報他們坐下的總時長，以及在四種不同場合——工作、看電視、業餘活動，以及不看電視的業餘活動——分別坐下的時長。研究人員還跟蹤調查了他們每日步行和運動的時長。
After controlling for a number of factors, including diet and general health, researchers found the overall mortality risk for these participants wasn’t influenced by how long they sat or by the kind of sitting. And the researchers cautioned that too much emphasis on not sitting shouldn’t take the place of promoting physical activity.
研究人員在控制了包括飲食、整體健康在內的許多變量後，發現：調查對象的總死亡率不受久坐時間和坐姿的影響。研究人員告誡稱，人們不應過份強調久坐的風險，而忽視強調運動的重要。
What’s particularly interesting about the study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, is that researchers didn’t just focus on sitting during the workday, but factored in all kinds of sitting-specific data as well as rates of physical activity. Their conclusion was that 「sitting time was not associated with all-cause mortality risk.」 Basically, more elements are in play than just whether you’re sitting down at work, and your levels of physical activity are the greatest health indicator.
這項研究發表在《國際流行病學雜誌》上。其中特別有趣的是，研究員沒有隻研究人們在工作時的久坐情況，還考慮到了各種相關數據和運動頻率。其結論是「久坐與全因死亡率無關」。總而言之，影響健康的元素很多，不僅僅在於是否在工作時久坐。最能體現健康狀況的是鍛鍊情況。
So what does this all mean? It appears that the act of working while standing up—which has become a trendy thing to do, especially in tech offices—doesn’t help your health, if you’re not actually exercising otherwise. If you never make it to the gym, you might as well just sit down. This is good news for the makers of treadmill desks, however.
所以這到底意味著什麼？現在流行站著辦公，科技公司尤為突出。但是如果不鍛鍊，站著工作也似乎沒什麼用；如果永遠都不去健身，還不如就坐著呢。這對跑步機辦公桌的生產商來說，可是個好消息。
The last office where I worked jumped on the standing desk trend hard, installing desks that could be raised for all workers. They also had a treadmill desk, and a bike desk. While the option to stand is certainly nice as a change in the middle of a monotonous workday, this research suggests it’s not the cure-all that adherents would like to claim.
我之前工作的地方勉強跟上了站立式辦公桌的潮流，裝上了可隨意調節高度的桌子。此外，還有一張跑步機辦公桌和一張自行車辦公桌。當然，在乏味的工作之餘能站著工作也是個不錯的選擇，但研究表明，站著工作並不是所謂的萬靈丹。
「Our study overturns current thinking on the health risks of sitting and indicates that the problem lies in the absence of movement rather than the time spent sitting itself,」 study author Melvyn Hillsdon of the University of Exeter said in a statement. 「Any stationary posture where energy expenditure is low may be detrimental to health, be it sitting or standing.」
「我們的研究推翻了當下人們對久坐危害的認知，並指出危害健康的原因在於缺乏鍛鍊，而不是久坐，」來自埃克塞特大學的研究作者梅爾文·希爾斯頓在一份聲明中說道。「身體靜止不動，能量消耗就低，從而危害健康，不管是坐著還是站著都一樣。」
The takeaway here is companies that truly want to assist worker health should invest money in options like free exercise classes and gym reimbursements. They should encourage employees to go outside and actually walk around, not simply stand up at their computers. And maybe it means that everyone who insists that standing up is the only way to work can climb down off their high desk.
這表明，真正關心員工健康的公司應該把錢花在購買免費運動課程和報銷健身費用上。公司應鼓勵員工走出辦公室，四處走走，而不是只在電腦前站著工作。或許這意味著那些堅信「站著是唯一解決辦法」的人終於能從高高的桌子上爬下來了。
Vocabulary
treadmill desk: 跑步機辦公桌
detrimental: 不利的；有害的
reimbursement: 報銷
英文來源：gizmodo.com
譯者：許楠楠
審校&編輯：丹妮