Watching television and the risk of death

Watching television and the risk of death. Results of research conducted by a team of Epidemiology Medical Research Council (MRC), UK, reveals that television viewing habits conducted by excessive may increase the risk of death.

TOO MANY RISKS INCREASING DEATH watching television

For nearly a decade, researchers from the Epidemiology Section Medical Research Council (MRC), UK, studied 13 197 men and women's midlife health. They found that watching television in an hour a day increases the risk of death from heart disease. Even after adjusting for other risk factors such as lack of exercise, smoking, obesity and poor eating habits.
Study participants with a history of related diseases such as stroke and heart attack are removed from the sample of this research. The researchers measured the time to watch television from questionnaires completed by participants. This research says 373 of 13 197 participants (1 of 35) died of heart disease. Taking into account all the variables, the amount of time spent watching television is a significant marker of their likelihood to die of heart disease.

Impressions relating to the World Cup on television, which controls the family room, study author, Dr Katrien Wijndaele from the MRC, warned: "Our bodies are not designed to sit in a long time and we must realize that, as we did during many hours watch the World Cup on TV, may increase the risk of heart disease. This may seem obvious that watching TV linked to heart disease. We need further studies to see if the other sitting activities, such as sitting behind computers or in the car, produced similar results .

Dr Ulf Ekelund, Katrien colleagues from the Medical Research Council, gave a count of the following illustration. If someone has a normal risk of dying from heart disease by 10 percent (taking into consideration other variables such as lifestyle, gender, and age), then watching TV an hour a day, then this risk increased to 10.7 percent. It is a small but significant. If you watch television four hours per day, this risk would increase to 13 percent.

According to investigators, the risk could be reduced by doing physical activities, like sports, at least 30 minutes per day.

These findings International Journal of Epidemiology published June 24, 2010.