A new study showed a progressive increase in multimorbidity, or multiple chronic conditions, in people who spent more time sedentary (or not moving). When people limited their time being sedentary to under four hours a day, it was linked with a lower chance of multimorbidity.
Findings were published Tuesday in _Archives of Public Health._ Data came from the first wave of the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSI-Brazil), which was from 2015 to 2016. In total, 7,314 people between the ages of 50 and 105 were included. Of them, 19.3% had two other conditions, while 12.1% didn’t have other conditions and 17.7% had more than five other illnesses. On average, 46.1% of participants were sedentary for one to three hours a day, while 9.4% of people were still for more than seven hours each day.
When scientists put the data together, they noticed a clear trend: The longer time people spent sedentary, the more likely they were to have more health ailments. The findings stayed intact even after investigators adjusted data based on factors like exercise, age and sex.
Systemic arterial hypertension, chronic spine problems and high cholesterol were the most common chronic conditions among participants.
[Multimorbidity](https://www.mcknights.com/news/study-pinpoints-multimorbidity-prevalence-in-older-adults/) is when a person has two or more chronic conditions, the researchers pointed out. Long sedentary time can drive metabolic changes such as high blood sugar and insulin resistance; it can also impair cardiovascular function and lipid metabolism regulation while increasing systemic inflammation.
“These findings support the growing awareness of the importance of physical activity, but more than that, considering sedentary time as an important health variable, is often overlooked in reducing the incidence of the total number of multimorbidity cases,” the authors wrote.
The [National Council on Aging](https://www.ncoa.org/article/get-the-facts-on-healthy-aging/) reports that nearly 95% of older adults over the age of 60 have at least one chronic condition and nearly 80% of older adults have two or more chronic conditions.