Get Off The Couch! Watching Over Two Hours of TV Daily Ups Your Heart Disease Risk, Study

If there’s one thing modern civilization has perfected, it’s the ability to sit still for unnaturally long periods while watching other people on television. However, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, your beloved TV time might be quietly undermining your health. The study found that people who watch less than an hour of TV per day have a significantly lower risk of heart disease, even if they have a high genetic risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.

Now, before you hurl your remote out the window in a panic, let’s break this down. The study followed a staggering 346,916 adults for nearly 14 years. Researchers found that those who limited their TV time to an hour or less had a 12% lower risk of developing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

Prolonged TV viewing sessions are worse than merely sitting (Getty Images)

This is particularly bad news for those of us who have ever convinced ourselves that lying on the couch for an entire weekend bingeing the latest crime documentary somehow counts as “resting.” Because while sitting itself is already bad news for your circulation, prolonged TV watching is especially dangerous. Unlike sitting at a desk (where at least you might fidget or get up occasionally), TV time tends to be uninterrupted, deep-immersion immobility.

Said Dr. Youngwon Kim, the study’s lead author, “Type 2 diabetes and a sedentary lifestyle, including prolonged sitting, are major risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. Watching TV, which accounts for more than half of daily sedentary behaviour, is consistently associated with an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis.”

Study findings:

• About 21% of participants reported watching TV one hour or less a day; more than 79% reported two or more hours per day of TV-watching time.
• Compared to watching TV for one hour or less daily, spending two hours or more daily in front of the TV was associated with a 12% higher risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, regardless of their genetic risk for Type 2 diabetes.
• Evaluations indicated that participants with medium and high Type 2 diabetes genetic risk did not have a higher risk of developing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease as long as TV viewing was limited to one hour or less daily.
• The 10-year absolute risk (probability) of developing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease was lower (2.13%) for people with high Type 2 diabetes genetic risk combined with one hour or less daily of TV viewing compared to people with low Type 2 diabetes genetic risk and who reported two or more hours of daily TV viewing (2.46%).

So what’s the solution?

The researchers aren’t suggesting we all cancel our Netflix subscriptions and start taking up mountain climbing. But small changes could make a world of difference. They recommend limiting TV time to an hour a day, standing up or stretching during commercial breaks, and generally trying to move more throughout the day.

It's a simple trade-off: Watch less TV, reduce your risk of heart disease, and perhaps reclaim some time to do things that actually involve using your legs.

Source:

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.124.036811