Plague of the office chair

"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" Albert Einstein.
A year ago I sounded the warning klaxon in relation to the growing plague besetting our work places: the office chair and its deleterious effects. Enticing and apparently enamoured with every workplace buttock, they lure us into a spiral of deteriorating health and inactivity related dilapidation. A solution arose both figuratively and literally, as the spouse of the office chair, the desk, grew some legs and stood up bolder with an attitude of altitude, to offer the worker either complete separation or intermittent freedom from the chair. I gave you, and once again I give you ... the standing desk.
Having a sitting duration amounting to 20 minutes at a time followed by positional change and returning to the waiting room, I didn't really actively seek to change my work environs, but looking at others can be like holding up a mirror to your own practices. I visited a friend this week to assess his work space as his neck has been in rebellion for a good long season and I could see from simple observation from the side and behind that although the designer chair may look the part, there is no basis in ergonomics for a buttock only protection arrangement. The resultant spinal distortion is a definite way to contribute to neck and back pain. Rather obvious but it spurred me into action for myself and I have just entered the healthier world of the standing desk user.
In order to develop an informed decision, the available data on the effects of standing in an office job need to be spread out across the desk top:
Heart: increased heart rate by around 8 beats per minute. This would imply an increase in energy expenditure. HDL (high density lipoprotein) increases in the blood - this is what you would want. Conversely Triglyceride and LDL (low density lipoprotein) appear to increase in prolonged sitting. You don't want those two to rise as then they predict heart disease, diabetes and stroke to name a few.
Weight Loss: no benefit shown in standing desk use but this is not a surprise as recent evidence rules out exercise as a causative factor in weight loss (see Cardiologist Aseem Malhotras' editorial in the online British Medical Journal: You cannot outrun a bad diet).
Posture: the seated body is being drawn inexorably towards the earth's core and thus the difficulty of maintaining a correct posture is evident. Slouch is inevitable and more so in Philippe Starck designer chairs. Standing renders the spinal column an actual column and so it is easier to keep aligned.
Versatility: the ability to swap between sitting and standing in a desk is important as there are also some prolonged standing issues such as sore muscles and varicose veins have been implicated.
Lumbar Spine: in one hour of sitting men develop stiffness in their low backs. Women were the same after two hours. The effect would seem to be mitigated by either exclusive standing or the regular positional change in alternating sitting and standing.
Exercise: the 30 minutes a day of vigorous exercise imperative does not seem to be sufficient to undo the negatives of sitting up to nine hours a day. Sitting increasingly appears to be stealthily attacking our well-being and gets away with it due to its gentle, innocent disposition.
Our Genetics: Changes in gene expression have been measured in sitting prolonged.
Gene expression is the process by which the genetic code of a gene is used to direct production of proteins and fabricate the structures of the cells. Prolonged sitting or sedentary behaviour has shown this not working to plan. One example showed that a gene that exerts control over anti-inflammatory pathways and metabolism of unhealthy triglycerides was activated by activity, but not in inactivity. Inflammation in the body is the pathway to disease.
Pros and cons weighed up it is obvious that sitting is killing humans slowly, in an epidemic way. People who diligently work hard for their living are ironically hastening the opposite - the non living. You may say, it's fine, I run three nights a week, so that must offset all the sitting I'm doing. Not so. The sedentary time has to be regularly broken up. Standing offers more muscle action per square metre than two buttocks. Actually sitting uses more muscles than that but nothing like standing. Also it's far easier to break into a quarter squat, river dance, moon walk or sword dance from standing than from sitting. Perhaps the fact that standing offers some fatigue or tiredness in the legs facilitates weight shifting, and adjusting movements.
Cost needn't be too prohibitive. In my quest for my Varidesk, I happened across several cost effective options, but the one I have allows me to keep my desk and it's rather good storage because the unit sits on the old desk top and raises through two easily accessed handles.
A lot of the desks that are completely desk, are without any storage and yet still almost twice the price of what I am using.
Once again I say, it is worth asking your employer to reward you for risking your life on a daily basis for their enterprise. You will have rubbed several years off your aspirational life tally for someone else's retirement, so ask for some recognition and get a standing desk. And Boss, there are benefits for you too. Your workers will live longer, work harder and love you like no other boss.
Also they just might not sue you when "the new smoking" (sitting) has its first class action suit!