Watching Too Much TV Linked to Premature Death

If you watch television for three or more hours a day, your risk of premature death is double that of someone who watches only one hour or less, according to new research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.1 The health...

July 11, 2014 | Source: Mercola.com | by Dr. Mercola

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If you watch television for three or more hours a day, your risk of premature death is double that of someone who watches only one hour or less, according to new research published in the
Journal of the American Heart Association.1 The health risks of too much sedentary behavior, including too much sitting, are now widely known.

An earlier study, published in 2009, also linked sitting with biomarkers of poor metabolic health, showing how total sitting time correlates with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and other prevalent chronic health problems,2 which explains why it could easily increase your risk of premature death.

What’s interesting about the current study, however, is that it didn’t compare television watching to other more active activities  it compared it to computer usage and driving time – two activities that also involve
sitting.

Somewhat surprisingly, computer use and driving time were not associated with an increased risk of death the way television watching was, which begs the question, is TV damaging to your health in other ways beyond sitting?

How Does Watching TV Damage Your Health?

While no link was found between using a computer or driving and premature death, for every two additional hours spent watching TV, a person’s risk of death from heart disease rose by 44 percent and risk of death from cancer climbed by 21 percent.3

The researchers were skeptical, so they set out to examine other variables that might be driving up death rates linked to TV watching, like increased consumption of processed foods and sugary drinks (widely known to rise with television viewing), smoking, an unrelated serious illness, following (or not following) a Mediterranean diet, age, sex, and weight.