A new study has found that office workers can counteract some of the negative health effects of sitting down all day by partaking in regular exercise.

The team of researchers from the Leicester Diabetes Center and the University of Leicester used data from the 2008 Health Survey to look at a possible link between sedentary behavior -- defined as habitual sitting time -- and diabetes and heart disease.

The team grouped participants into four different categories depending on their level of physical activity and sedentary behavior and looked at a variety of cardiometabolic markers which indicate the risk of disease.

The results showed that individuals who were physically active were healthier across a variety of these markers -- even when they also had a high level of sedentary time -- in comparison to those who were physically inactive and with a high level of sedentary time.

However the team also found that when not physically active, a low level of sedentary time had health benefits, with the study showing that low sedentary time was associated with higher HDL (good) cholesterol levels even when combined with a lack of physical activity.

Although researchers in this field are still studying the health effects of different levels of sedentary time combined with different levels of exercise, this particular finding suggests the importance of reducing sedentary time overall even when not partaking in exercise, and is supported by other recent studies.

A 2015 study published in Health Psychology Review suggested that aiming to decrease the amount of sitting time rather than increasing the amount of exercise was a priority for staying healthy, with the findings of an earlier 2015 study also demonstrating the importance of decreasing sedentary time, with its results showing that even individuals who partake in regular exercise are still at risk of the adverse health effects of prolonged sitting

While these conclusions seem to contradict these latest findings and the researchers recognize that more research is needed in this area, the Leicester study does highlight the benefits of promoting exercise in a sedentary culture, particularly for those whose job requires them to sit for long periods, with one of the study's co-authors Kishan Bakrania commenting, "This research is significant because it demonstrates yet again why physical activity and exercise is so important. It shows that people who spend large amounts of time not moving either through work, leisure or lifestyle can counteract some of the negative effects of sedentary behavior by regularly exercising."

The findings were published in the journal BMC Public Health.