Researchers from Down Under have found that every hour someone spends watching TV is related to an eighteen percent higher chance of mortality due to cardiovascular disease and eleven percent greater odds of becoming a fatality from all causes of those diseases linked to death.
A person would be far better off if they watched television while using the stair stepper or walking on the treadmill. When a person is spending hour upon hour sitting or laying on the couch watching TV they will live for a shorter period of time than someone who is active and participating in life somehow.
The Australian research team says the worst possible way to spend your leisure hours is poured into a chair or on a couch watching television since a sedentary lifestyle has been unequivocally associated with obesity and heart disease. By quantifying the effect of watching television researchers hope to spur some habitual tube viewers into a more active lifestyle.
An eighteen percent greater risk of dying due to heart disease is a scary number yet when you take a look at what you are doing [or not doing] while watching the TV, one quickly realizes they really are putting themselves at risk. TV time is almost always associated with snacking and drinking something and the lack of movement speaks for itself. Though the study did not determine a direct cause for their numbers, one does not need a degree in astro-physics to see the connection.
The Australian study was published in the Circulation, the Journal of the American Heart Association and it evaluated data taken from eighty eight hundred men and women above the age of twenty five who had been part of the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study. Contributors kept track of the time they spent in front of the tube over a week’s time, then researchers correlated the findings according to the amount TV watching – who watched two hours a day, two to four hour per day and those who watched more than four hours of television each day.
The participants also took an oral glucose evaluation to check blood sugar levels and offered up blood samples to determine cholesterol levels to begin the study. If someone had a history of cardiovascular disease, he or she was excluded from the results. Six years subsequent to the test commencing, 87 individuals had died because of cardiovascular disease and another one hundred twenty five from cancer.
The study authors discovered a large link connecting hours watching television and death from cardiovascular disease, not only in those who were overweight and obese, but also in those individuals who exhibited a previously healthy weight and did physical training.
Study contributors who viewed more than four hours a day of TV displayed an eighty percent bigger danger of dying due to cardiovascular disease as well as a forty six percent greater risk of all modes of death versus those who watched less than two hours of TV each day. This is suggestive of how an inactive lifestyle can lead to lethal consequences. The same numbers resulted when the Aussie research team tested for smoking, hypertension, high cholesterol, poor dietary habits and physical activity during spare time.
They showed through their research that regardless of what a person’s level of training was, sitting for four hours or longer watching the TV showed a strong link to the risk of death in comparison to watching lesser amounts of television. If there is any message here to make the public aware of, it is that as well as encouraging an exercise regimen, we should avoid any occasion to sit for extended periods of time, like sitting for hours in front of a computer monitor.
Interestingly the researchers were not overly surprised by their results. They say when we are in the sitting position, we are not using any muscularity and there is a mountain of data that shows muscle contraction is crucial to the body’s regulatory progression, such as the process of transforming glucose into energy. This can cause insulin resistance, which could stimulate a spike in blood sugar levels and eventually lead toward type 2 diabetes.
Other experts agreed with the study evaluations. One independent expert who read the released report stated that muscles lose their “memory”, becoming “unconditioned” when they are not being utilized as intended. This initiates a harmful physiological transformation. When you slow down your physical activity, you are not metabolizing cholesterol as readily and begin to produce the substance further.
Even if you exercise only intermittently, yet still remain seated for hours on end, you must increase your physical activity according to the experts. The physical aspect of our day is very important. Any opportunity we have over the course of a twenty four hour day, to partake in some exercise we should do so. This means things like walking here or there, taking the stairs at work, parking at the rear of the parking lot, doing some gardening or just taking the dog for a walk. The main thing to remember is keep moving.
Find the motivation to exercise and get out and do something active has always been difficult for normally sedentary people. The results of this study should spur people into action. Human nature being what it is we always wait until it is too late before we take a potential threat to our health seriously. We wait for something to go wrong before we begin to do something about it. This study has revealed how critical it is to our survival to find something to do to keep active. Sitting in front of the television for more than a couple hours a day will kill you. What more does a person need to hear before they take action?
Fri, Jan 22, 2010
Anti Aging, Health And Aging, Lifestyle