Effects of interrupting daily sedentary behavior on children's glucose metabolism: A 6-day randomized controlled trial
The opinions and assertions expressed herein are those of the authors and are not to be construed as reflecting the views of the NIH or the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
Funding information: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), NIH, Grant/Award Number: Z1AHD00641; NIH Office of Disease Prevention; Thrasher Research Fund; National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Grant/Award Number: Z1CDK071013
Abstract
Background
Metabolic disease risk in youth is influenced by sedentary behaviors. Acute in-lab studies show that, during a single day, interrupting a sedentary period with short bouts of physical activity improves glucometabolic outcomes.
Objective
To determine if acutely improved glucose metabolism persists after multi-day interruptions of sitting with walking brief bouts. We hypothesized that children who underwent interrupting sitting on multiple days would demonstrate lower insulin area under the curve during an oral glucose tolerance test compared to uninterrupted sitting.
Methods
Healthy, normoglycemic children (N = 109) ages 7–11 years were randomized to one of two conditions: Control (3 h of daily Uninterrupted Sitting) or Interrupted Sitting (3-min of moderate-intensity walking every 30 min for 3 h daily); with dietary intake controlled through provision of foodstuffs for the entire experiment. Participants attended six consecutive daily visits at a research ambulatory unit. The primary outcome was insulin area under the curve during the oral glucose tolerance test on day 6 during interrupted or uninterrupted sitting; secondary outcomes included glucose and c-peptide area under the curve, energy intake at a buffet meal on day 6, and free-living activity.
Results
Among 93 children (42 uninterrupted sitting, 51 interrupted sitting), daily interrupted sitting resulted in 21% lower insulin (β = 0.102 CI:0.032–0.172, p = 0.005) and a 10% lower C-peptide (β = 0.043, CI:0.001–0.084, p = 0.045) area under the curve. Matsuda and Glucose Effectiveness Indices were also improved (p's < 0.05). There were no group differences in energy intake or expenditure.
Conclusions
Sustained behavioral change by interrupting sedentary behaviors is a promising intervention strategy for improving metabolic risk in children.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
CogState Ltd (New Haven, CT, USA) supplied cognitive testing software for this study under a data sharing agreement. Jack A. Yanovski has received grant support unrelated to this article for pharmacotherapy trials for obesity from Hikma Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Soleno Therapeutics, Inc., and Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, Inc. No other potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported by the other authors.
Open Research
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The data that support the findings of this study are available in the NICHD Clinical Trials Data Base at https://ctdb.nichd.nih.gov/ctdb/ upon reasonable request from the corresponding Author.
