Exposure to prolonged sedentary behavior on weekdays rather than weekends in white-collar workers in comparison with blue-collar workers

Is Occupation a Risk Factor for Developing Inflammatory Bowel Disease? A Case-Control Study

Background and aims

The role of occupation is uncertain in the onset of inflammatory bowel diseases. The aim of this study is to identify if there is a role of occupation in these diseases.

Materials and methods

A case-control study with incident cases with inflammatory bowel diseases was designed. Cases and controls were recruited simultaneously and controls followed a sex and age frequency matching with cases. A detailed questionnaire was completed by all the participants. To analyze the results, a logistic regression was used. A subgroup analysis was performed for each inflammatory bowel disease.

Results

A total of 141 patients with incident inflammatory bowel disease (80 ulcerative colitis, 55 Crohn's disease, and 6 unclassified colitis) and 114 controls were included. There were no statistically significant differences in type of work, working hours, contact with animals, or physical activity at work between inflammatory bowel disease patients and controls. After stratifying results according to type of IBD, there were no statistically significant differences either.

Conclusions

There seems to be no risk for inflammatory bowel disease onset regarding the type of work, working hours, contact with animals, or sedentariness.

Relationship of sleep regularity with device-based sedentary behavior time and physical activity time in working adults

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to investigate the association of sleep regularity with time spent in sedentary behavior (SB) and physical activity (PA) in adults with full-time jobs.

METHODS

This was a cross-sectional study. Adults aged 21-64 years with full-time jobs were recruited between August 2019 and December 2020 in Taiwan. The time spent in SB/PA was assessed using triaxial accelerometers (Actigraph wGT3x-BT), and PA was further classified into light-intensity physical activity (LPA) and moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA). Each participant recorded their daily sleep patterns and work hours in a log, which was further used to measure sleep variability and social jet lag. Linear regression was applied to examine the associations of indicators of sleep regularity with SB time and PA time.

RESULTS

A total of 192 adults (men = 28.13%; mean age = 38.56 ± 8.89 years) were included in this study. After adjusting for potential covariates, greater social jet lag was related to more SB time (unstandardized coefficient [B] = 14.39, P = .005) and less LPA time (B = -0.02, P = .010). No evidence of an association between other indicators of sleep regularity with SB/PA time was found.

CONCLUSIONS

These results provide evidence for a relationship between sleep regularity and SB/PA time in working adults. Maintaining regular sleep, especially a small social jet lag, was suggested to promote physical activity and avoid a sedentary lifestyle. Future research is recommended to examine work-related influences on the associations and bidirectional relationship between sleep regularity and SB/PA.

Objective Measurement of Walking Activity Using Wearable Technologies in People with Parkinson Disease: A Systematic Review

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a complex neurodegenerative disease with a multitude of disease variations including motor and non-motor symptoms. Quality of life and symptom management may be improved with physical activity. Due to technological advancement, development of small new wearable devices recently emerged and allowed objective measurement of walking activity in daily life. This review was specifically designed to synthesize literature on objective walking activity measurements using wearable devices of patients with PD. Inclusion criteria included patients with a diagnosis of PD and exclusion criteria included studies using animal models or mixed syndromes. Participants were not required to undergo any type of intervention and the studies must have reported at least one output that quantifies daily walking activity. Three databases were systematically searched with no limitation on publication date. Twenty-six studies were eligible and included in the systematic review. The most frequently used device was the ActiGraph GT3X which was used in 10 studies. Duration of monitoring presented a range from 8 h to one year. Nevertheless, 11 studies measured walking activity during a 7-day period. On-body sensor wearing location differed throughout the included studies showing eight positions, with the waist, ankle, and wrist being the most frequently used locations. The main procedures consisted of measurement of walking hours during a 2-day period or more, equipped with a triaxial accelerometer at the dominant hip or ankle. It is also important for further research to take care of different factors such as the population, their pathology, the period, and the environment.