That Standing Desk Might Not Be The Magical Solution : Shots – Health News : NPR.

An analysis of 20 studies failed to find good evidence that standing at a work desk is better than sitting. “What we actually found is that most of it is, very much, just fashionable and not proven good for your health,” says Dr. Jos Verbeek, a health researcher at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.

Verbeek says that the studies he and his co-authors analyzed came to conflicting conclusions about whether sit-stand desks reduce sitting time. Even the best research available wasn’t great, the researchers write in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. The studies were either too small to be significant, the scientists say, or were poorly designed. For example, most were not randomized controlled trials, and the longest study followed participants for only six months.

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Interesting, it seems like if you’re interested in a standing desk, you’re interested in a whole bunch of other lifestyle and work style preferences that might contribute to better posture, ergonomics, health, etc. It might be another instance of “if you think it works for you, it works for you”. Hard to prove or disprove that – maybe there’s something in between like periodic standing / walking around breaks, vs only standing or only sitting.