By looking at blood sugar levels and blood pressure, two important metrics of heart disease, the scientists were able to determine how much daily movement was required to get back to equilibrium from the negative effects of sitting.

Picture if you will, an office worker. Waking in the morning in time for coffee and perhaps breakfast with perhaps a spouse or perhaps children, the day begins with at least some sitting. Then climbing into one's car, the office worker drives in a seated position to the office. There, between lunch and desk work, the worker spends 8-9 hours sitting before returning home, sitting in their car. Once home, they likely sit down for dinner, and perhaps a bit of television or reading; both done from the seated position.

Sitting time for adults in industrialized nations has been climbing for decades, and it increases the risk for all the diseases typical of those nations, i.e. type-2 diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke, fatty liver disease, etc.

In a new study published in Medicine Science in Sports and Exercise, Keith Diaz et al. asked 11 healthy middle-aged individuals to complete an experiment in which they sat in a lab for 8 hours a day for 5 days to represent a normal workweek.

On some days they sat for the whole 8 hours, only rising for bathroom breaks. On others they were engaged in short bouts of walking with differing regularities to find the lowest amount of movement required to reduce their blood sugar and blood pressure.

"We found that a 5-minute light walk every half-hour was the only strategy that reduced blood sugar levels substantially compared with sitting all day," Diaz wrote in The Conversation.

"In particular, 5-minute walks every half-hour reduced the blood sugar spike after eating by almost 60%, [and] that strategy also reduced blood pressure by four to five points compared with sitting all day."