Researchers at the National Cancer Institute have recently completed a study linking eight deadly afflictions and diseases to too much television viewing.
Recent research published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine declares that too much television watching may shorten your life. Those who watch more than three hours of television a day, the research says, run the risk of contracting any number of as many as eight affliction and diseases.
Apparently, your three hours of television watching every day will afflict you with such deadly diseases as Parkinson’s Disease, the flu, heart disease, COPD, cancer, and a host of others. The research, also, concludes that for those of us who watch more than seven hours a day, you have a 47 percent greater chance of being killed by these diseases and afflictions than if you don’t, according to Forbes.
It’s not the television’s fault according to the research team at the National Cancer Institute who carried out the study. It’s more about what is happening, or isn’t happening, with your body while you lie or sit in a near drug addled state. The research team linked too much television watching to other recent research that has suggested too sedentary a lifestyle, too much just sitting around, will adversely affect your health over the long haul.
The research study took place over the course of fourteen years. The affects of sitting and watching television were measured against the diseases people fell afflicted with and the chances they had of being killed by those afflictions or diseases. For cancer, the chances of dying prematurely increased by 7 percent; for Alzheimer’s 12 percent; for heart disease 27 percent; liver disease 33 percent; COPD 34 percent; Parkinson’s 35 percent; diabetes 56 percent; and suicide 43 percent.
While research suggests that exercise is helpful, it can’t over ride the adverse affects of sitting around for long periods of time. There is a difference, researchers note, between not exercising regularly and an excessive amount of just sitting. The increase in depression is there for prolonged television watching, also. The prolonged sitting can result in inflammation, poor blood flow, weak muscle strength as well as reduced levels of insulin and glucose.
