Don't underestimate benefits of a 2-minute walk

A new study from Diabetologia due out next month will detail the harmful effects of a sedentary lifestyle among adults. Most notably, according to the New York Times, every hour a person sits increases that person's chances of becoming diabetic by 3.4 percent.

Walking for a couple of minutes, however, could lower the chance of premature death by 33 percent.

The association is derived from a National Health and Nutrition Examination survey. Researchers from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City analyzed the data from 3,626 "generally healthy" men and women at the start of the study.

The researchers looked at how much time participants spent "sitting; participating in low-intensity activity (since the monitors couldn't pick up changes in posture, but only in bodily movements, they couldn't measure standing per se); engaging in light-intensity activities, such as strolling around a room; or doing moderate to intense activities, such as jogging," the Times report says.

The study took place over the course of a couple of years. The results were somewhat surprising to the researchers: "A low-intensity activity like standing, by itself, had little effect on mortality risk," according to the Times. In other words, those who primarily stood were no safer than those spent most of their time sitting.

A light stroll proved to be much greater in offsetting the harmful risks associated with sitting. Those who already walk can benefit from walking even more, too, according to the researchers' analysis and Times report.

The benefit has to do with energy balance, Dr. Srinivasan Beddhu, the lead researcher, told the times. The activity can trigger metabolic changes, he said.

The analysis of the data establishes mere association because it is an observational study, Beddhu tells the Times, but the prospect of benefits prove worthy of making an effort to walk part of a daily routine.