A new study indicates that too much time spent in sedentary activities isn't good for the health and may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, Medscape reports.

"Our results demonstrate that each extra hour of sitting time per day is associated with a 22% increased odds for type 2 diabetes. These results are independent of high-intensity physical activity, like exercise," commented first author Julianne van der Berg, a PhD candidate in social medicine at Maastricht University, the Netherlands.

The work was published online February 2 in Diabetologia.

Earlier research studies suggested that spending a long time in sedentary activities is harmful and contributes to mortality risk.

For the present study, the researchers used a device called the activPAL (PAL Technologies) to monitor sedentary behavior.

There were 2497 participants (mean age 60 years, 52% men) in The Maastricht Study, a prospective cohort study from the Netherlands that focused on factors related to the development, complications, and comorbidities of type 2 diabetes, that were included in the current analysis.

To measure their sedentary behavior, the participants were made to wear the activPAL on their thigh for 24 hours per day for 8 days in a row.

ActivPAL measures sedentary behavior using posture.

The researchers found that participants with type 2 diabetes spent the greatest amount of sedentary time, as compared to those those with normal or impaired glucose metabolism.

"To our knowledge, our study is the largest in which posture-discriminating accelerometry was used to objectively measure total amount and patterns of sedentary behavior in a sample of adults comprising participants with type 2 diabetes or impaired or normal glucose metabolism," said the researchers.