Beware! Prolonged Watching of TV Can Cause Pre-mature Death - Study

Photo credit: WiseGEEK

Watching television is the most common daily activity apart from work and sleep in many parts of the world, but it is time for people to change their viewing habits.

Evidence from a spate of recent studies suggests that the more TV you watch, the more likely you are to develop a host of health problems and to die at an earlier age.

According to the latest research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, adults who watch TV for three hours or more each day may double their risk of premature death compared to those who watch less.

The study’s lead author, professor and chair of the Department of Public Health at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, Miguel Martinez-Gonzalez, said: “Television viewing is a major sedentary behaviour and there is an increasing trend toward all types of sedentary behaviours. Our findings are consistent with a range of previous studies where time spent watching television was linked to mortality.”

Researchers assessed 13,284 young and healthy Spanish university graduates (average age 37, 60 per cent women) to determine the association between three types of sedentary behaviours and risk of death from all causes: television viewing time, computer time and driving time. The participants were followed for a median 8.2 years. Researchers reported 97 deaths, with 19 deaths from cardiovascular causes, 46 from cancer and 32 from other causes.

The risk of death was twofold higher for participants who reported watching three or more hours of TV a day compared to those watching one or less hours. This twofold higher risk was also apparent after accounting for a wide array of other variables related to a higher risk of death.

Researchers found no significant association between the time spent using a computer or driving and higher risk of premature death from all causes.      

Researchers said further studies are needed to confirm what effects may exist between computer use and driving on death rates, and to determine the biological mechanisms explaining these associations.

For every additional two hours people spend watching TV,
their risk of developing type 2 diabetes increases by 20%

An earlier study from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers  and published on June 15, 2011, edition of  Journal of the American Medical Association also revealed that prolonged TV viewing was associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and premature death.

And for every additional three hours the study participants spent in front of the TV, their risk of dying from any cause during the respective studies jumped 13%, on average.

Dr. Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, who co-authoured the analysis observed, "When put together, the findings are remarkably consistent across different studies and different populations."

Similarly, Stephen Kopecky, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who was not involved in the research, said that the increased risk of disease tied to TV watching "is similar to what you see with high cholesterol or blood pressure or smoking. The new analysis, he adds, "elevates the importance of the sedentary lifestyle" as a risk factor.

"Individual physicians may not see a dramatic rise in illness and death as a result of excessive TV watching, but the cumulative effect could have a major impact on public health in the long term, " Kopecky says.

Although death is a necessary end, medical experts say life span can be extended. Indeed, scientists have found that increasing physical activity reduces the risk of early death, and even improves the quality of life and survival rate in persons with degenerative diseases.