A Wellington study has found that more people get blood clots from sitting down for long periods at work than on long-haul flights.
Professor Richard Beasley, of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, said researchers studied the risk factors of 62 people under the age of 65 admitted to Wellington Hospital with deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism.
One-third of them had been seated for long periods at work in the previous four weeks, and only one in five had been on a long-haul flight.
Professor Beasley was surprised by the length of time workers had spent sitting down. Some had worked in a desk job for up to 14 hours.
"Some of them were seated for up to four or five hours for a time without getting up to move around." Managers, call-centre workers and taxi drivers were among them.
But the results did not mean that sitting still at work was more dangerous than taking a long-haul flight. Other factors such as cabin pressure had been implicated as contributing to the risk on flights.
Researchers did not know the proportion of people who had desk jobs compared with those who travelled.
Professor Beasley said the public recognised long-haul flights as a risk factor, but there was less awareness of the dangers of sitting still at work.
Office workers should stand and move around every half hour to an hour, he said.
ACC had committed funding to further research on how the work environment contributed to the risk.
Professor Beasley is to present the research findings at the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand's conference this month.
