Exploring the relationship between daily sedentary time and occurrence of multimorbidity in middle-aged and older adults: results from ELSI-Brazil.

Aim: To explore the relationship between varying durations of sedentary time (ST) in hours per day and multimorbidity, while considering covariates such as non-compliance to moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) recommendations, age, sex, and smoking in middle-aged and older adults.

Methods: Data from the first wave (2015-2016) of the nationally-representative Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSI-Brazil) were analyzed. Ordinary regression analysis was utilized to assess the odds ratio for individuals with varying daily ST durations concerning the escalation in the number of diseases while accounting for covariates such as failure to meet MVPA recommendations, age, sex, and smoking status.

Results: A cohort of 7,314 individuals aged 50-105 years (56,3% females) participated in the study. The most prevalent occurrence of multimorbidity was having 2 conditions (1521/19.3%). A clear trend emerges, showing a rise in the number of multimorbidities as ST increase. Notably, individuals engaging in less than 4 h of daily ST exhibited a significantly lower likelihood of experiencing an increase in the total number of multimorbidity cases, with an odds ratio of 0.842 and a confidence interval of 0.764 to 0.928, even after adjusting for potential covariables.

Conclusions: Our findings indicate a progressive increase in multimorbidity with longer durations of ST. Moreover, limiting ST to less than 4 h daily was associated with a lower chance of multimorbidity.