
In an announcement yesterday health experts had warned that office workers sit at their computer screens for long periods without a break have an increased risk of being affected by deep vein thrombosis.
This warning was issued after reports that a computer programmer from Bristol almost died after a 12-hour stint in front of his screen in what is believed to be one of the first cases in the UK of a growing phenomenon dubbed e-thrombosis emerged.
Beverley Hunt, medical director of the charity Lifeblood, said that very few office workers were aware that they could be affected in the same way as air travel passengers. Dr Hunt explained that immobility is a key factor in causing thrombosis. The term e-thrombosis was coined after a 32-year-old man in New Zealand inexplicably suffered a pulmonary embolism. He often spent 12 hours a day at his computer and did not stand up for hours.