Sitting still kills student – parents blame XBox not themselves

The folks on yahoo have flagged the plight of a poor student, 20 year old Chris Staniforth from Leicester, who appears to have died from ‘sitting still' for too long. After spending hours researching the subject, they found that another player died SIX years ago. KitGuru puts a note in the diary to do some cardio work and digs deeper.

Humans are built for action. We're designed to be on the move all the time. Sitting still for really long periods of time, can create tiny little blood clots in the deep veins in your legs. On the very rare occasions that these form, it's then possible for them to travel through your circulatory system and create a problem elsewhere.

The tiny blood clots that get the most press attention seem to be the ones that cause pulmonary embolism. Pulmonary means lungs. Embolism means blockage. When this happens, your body tries to compensate – which leads to a big increase in pressure on one of your heart's valves.

Most of us will go through life without this kind of issue, so what puts us at risk?

There are 3 areas which can contribute to the condition: changes in blood flow, things which affect the tubes through which your blood flows and, finally, things which change the properties of your blood. So in the case of along haul flight, the combination of being in a pressurised cabin, without moving and not taking in enough liquid – can all combine to increase risk. But so much that anyone you know has stopped flying.

If you are one of the minority of people who are at risk, and you find yourself in a situation where the adverse conditions are just right – then a pulmonary embolism that goes completely untreated will still only kill 1 in 4 people.

Professor Brian Colvin is a smart bloke and an expert on blood. He's warned parents that if their children regularly sit in front of a computer screen for 12 hours at a time, then it's unhealthy. We're not sure if Prof. Colvin has published any research on ‘Bears have been known to crap in the woods' or ‘Sticking pins in your eyes may effect your ability to see', but we will update you if we find them.

Microsoft has come out and said that its customers shouldn't ‘spend their lives playing XBox' and we suspect that Nintendo and Sony would have similar words of wisdom.

The ultimate irony?  The poor bloke who died, Chris Staniforth, was preparing to spend his life working in the games industry – creating more of these addictive games.

KitGuru says: Our sympathies go out to any parent who has lost a child, but parents who see that their child that does not move from a seat for 12 hours have to question their own ability to parent. Not sure if we'd file them in the same folder as parents who leave a 4 year old in a room on their own for the night while they go and have a nice dinner, but it's got to be close. KitGuru advises gamers to move around more, east sensibly, take up a sport, watch their diet and – occasionally – go outside to meet real people. Sound advice.

Comments below or in the KitGuru forum.

Become a Patron!