TOO MUCH TV time may HURT your HEART

A study reveals Spending lots of free time glued to the TV or computer screen can hurt your heart and shorten your life, no matter how much exercise you get when you're not riding the couch.

People who spent at least four hours per day watching TV, playing video games, or using a computer for fun were more than twice as likely as those who kept their recreational "screen time" under two hours to experience a heart attack, stroke, or other serious cardiovascular problem, the study found. Couch potatoes were also about 50 percent more likely to die of any cause during the four-year study.

The study doesn't prove that watching TV or playing computer games is inherently unhealthy, says the lead researcher, Emmanuel Stamatakis, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at University College London, in the U.K. The real culprit may be what people tend to do during those activities: sit.

Why is sitting harmful? It's not entirely clear, but animal studies have shown that prolonged sitting slows down the action of an enzyme (lipoprotein lipase) that breaks down fats in the blood, such as cholesterol and triglycerides. When the enzyme activity slows, levels of those substances climb. This is a "very plausible explanation" for the findings, Stamatakis says.

Stamatakis and his colleagues followed more than 4,500 Scottish people age 35 or older whose screen time and other health behaviors were recorded in a survey. The majority of participants (54 percent) said they spent two to four hours of free time each day in front of the TV or the computer, while 29 percent spent four hours or more. (Screen time at work or school was excluded).

Stamatakis and his colleagues are now investigating whether getting up and walking around or even just standing can help counter the ill effects of sitting. The average adult in the U.S. and U.K. watches three to four hours of TV daily, Stamatakis says, and many of us also spend our working lives sitting at a desk and commuting behind the wheel of a car.

Information taken from here.

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