Treadmill workstation targets fat

[Missy]

Found this interesting article in my local newspaper....

TORONTO -- Sitting all day at a desk or in front of a computer is hardly conducive to weight loss. But what if you could exercise while working?

That's the aim of a vertical workstation that can be locked in place over a treadmill, allowing employees to work at a computer while walking at a speed of their choice.

Mayo Clinic researchers who designed the "walk-and-work" desk suggest it could help overweight workers shed pounds as they perform traditionally sit-down tasks.

"This so obviously pertains to the obesity epidemic and the hundreds of billions of dollars of cost associated with it," principal researcher James Levine, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic, said yesterday from Rochester, Minn. "However, you can't become obese without becoming overweight. Secondly, it's now normal to be overweight, therefore this is already . . . an issue germane to more than half of the workforce."

In a small study, published online yesterday ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the researchers had 15 obese volunteers use the treadmill-cum-desk for 35 minutes out of an hour and measured how many calories they burned compared to sitting. All of the participants had sedentary jobs and none did regular exercise.

In all, they walked the desk treadmill for about 90 minutes over the course of a day, said Levine, noting that there were no injuries, falls or unsteadiness while using the device.

Participants burned an average of 191 kilocalories an hour at the vertical workstation, walking the equivalent of 1.6 kilometres an hour, compared to 72 kilocalories an hour while working sitting down.

Levine said that by using the vertical workstation a couple of hours a day -- and boosting energy expenditure by 100 kilocalories an hour -- an obese employee could shed 45 to 65 pounds over the course of a year.

This 2006 study did not measure weight loss, just the calories burned, said Levine, who spoke while walking the treadmill-desk in his chairless office.

"Our current studies are much more involved in the former, namely losing weight," he said of new research, for which official results have not been compiled. "Suffice it to say it's a very powerful way, it would seem, to potentially lose weight."

Commenting on the study, obesity expert Dr. Arya Sharma of McMaster University said the vertical workstation is an appealing idea for incorporating physical activity into the workplace.

"I would love to have a desk like that," Sharma, scientific director of the Canadian Obesity Network, said yesterday from Hamilton.

But he cautioned the study results shouldn't be misinterpreted. Because exercise increases appetite, employees using the device would have to guard against eating more, "which would bring them back to zero," Sharma said.

As well, a person would not keep on losing weight at the same rate by keeping to the same level of exercise, he said.

"For the first 10 pounds, you might have to do two miles (3.2 kilometres) a day, and once you've lost 15 pounds you might have to do three miles (five kilometres) a day . . . etcetera, because your body as it gets lighter uses less energy (calories).

"If you think this is the solution to make all fat employees thin, you're wrong."

The vertical workstation, designed by Levine and his team, costs about US$1,600 and will be available for purchase through office-furniture maker Steelcase Inc.