Sitting with your legs crossed for long period can affect your heart

Washington: A new study has found that sitting with legs crossed at the knee can bump up blood pressure.

Leg crossing increased systolic blood pressure nearly 7 percent and diastolic by 2 percent, ABC News reported.

Stephen T. Sinatra, MD, FACC, a Connecticut-based cardiologist and author of The Great Cholesterol Myth said that frequent crossing of the legs also puts stress on the hip joints and can cause pooling of blood in the legs when the veins are compressed.

This could predispose you to inflammation of the veins of the lower legs and possibly a blood clot, he said.

Dr. Sinatra advises to avoid crossing your legs for longer than 10 to 15 minutes, and to get up and walk around every half hour or so.

The study is published in the journal Blood Pressure Monitoring.