Associations of sedentary time and diabetes in 6166 older women: The Objective Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Health Study.

Background: We examined associations of sedentary time and sedentary accumulation patterns (i.e., how sedentary time is accumulated) with prevalent diabetes in an ethnically diverse cohort of older women.

Methods: Community-dwelling women aged 63-99 (n=6,116; median age=79) wore ActiGraph GT3X+ accelerometers 24 hours/day for up to seven days from which we derived average daily sedentary time and three measures of sedentary accumulation patterns: breaks in sedentary time, usual sedentary bout duration, and alpha. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for prevalent diabetes were estimated using multivariable logistic regression.

Results: Twenty-one percent (n=1282) of participants had diabetes. Women in the highest quartile of sedentary time (≥10.3 hrs/day) had higher odds of diabetes (OR=2.18; 95% CI=1.77-2.70) than women in the lowest quartile (≤8.3 hrs/day). Prolonged accumulation patterns (i.e., accumulating sedentary time in longer sedentary bouts) was associated with higher odds of diabetes than regularly interrupted patterns [comparing quartiles with the most vs. least prolonged patterns: usual bout duration OR=1.57, 95% CI=1.28-1.92; alpha OR=1.61, 95% CI=1.32-1.97]; however, there was no significant association for breaks in sedentary time (OR=1.00, 95% CI=0.82-1.20).

Conclusions: High levels of sedentary time and accumulating it in prolonged patterns were associated with increased odds of diabetes among older women.