Treadmill-Desk Burns 100 Calories per Hour

Researchers from the Mayo Clinic have news that doesn’t really surprise us, but is pretty cool nonetheless. They constructed a standing work station with a treadmill, and put obese patients on it. Lo and behold! They burn calories…

They built what they called a “vertical workstation” — a desk fitted over a standard treadmill. They persuaded 15 obese people to work at this treadmill-desk and measured how many calories they burned.
James Levine and Jennifer Miller measured how many calories their 15 volunteers burned using exhaled breath but did not determine if the volunteers lost weight.
On average, their overweight volunteers burned 100 calories more every hour while walking slowly — at 1 mile per hour (1,6 km per hour) — than while sitting in a chair.
“If obese individuals were to replace time spent sitting at the computer with walking computer time by 2 to 3 hours a day, and if other components of energy balance were constant, a weight loss of 20 to 30 kg a year could occur,” the researchers wrote.

It’s really strange that they took the time to measure calories burned, but not weight lost. Of course, that means they would’ve had to have an assortment of controls along with strict monitoring of the diet and activity levels of each subject–just to prove what would already be common sense.
More from Reuters…
…Or go straight to the abstract or full text article (subscription req) in the British Journal of Sports Medicine