JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Most older adults spend the majority of their waking hours sitting, which increases their risk of chronic diseases. Given the challenges many older adults face in engaging in moderate to vigorous physical activity, understanding the health benefits of decreasing sitting time and increasing the number of sit-to-stand transitions is needed to address this growing public health concern.

Objective:

The primary aim of this 3-arm randomized controlled trial is to investigate how changes in sitting time and brief sit-to-stand transitions impact biomarkers of healthy aging, and physical, emotional, and cognitive functioning compared to a healthy attention controls arm.

Methods:

Sedentary and postmenopausal women (N=405) will be recruited and randomly assigned to one of three study conditions for 3 months: (1) healthy living (control), (2) reduce sitting time, (3) increase sit-to-stand transitions. Assessments conducted at baseline and 3 months include: fasting blood draw, blood-pressure, anthropometric measures, physical functioning, cognitive testing, and 7 days of a thigh worn accelerometer (activPal) and a hip-worn accelerometer (ActiGraph). Blood based biomarkers of healthy aging will be measures include those associated with glycemic control (glycated hemoglobin, HbA1c; fasting plasma insulin and glucose, homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance, HOMA-IR).

Results:

Recruitment began in May 2018. The intervention is ongoing with data collection expected to continue through the end of 2022.

Conclusions:

The Rise for Health study is designed to test whether two different approaches to interrupting sitting time can improve healthy aging in postmenopausal women. Results from this study may inform the development of sedentary behavior guidelines and interventions to reduce sitting time in older adults. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03473145 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03473145