Daily Express

Warning: Too much TV can kill you

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WATCHING too much TV can kill you, a new study claims.

Hours slumped on a settee raises the risk of dying from a blood clot on the lungs.

Japanese scientists studied the viewing habits of more than 86,000 people aged 40 to 79.

They found that every additional two hours of watching TV per day increased the risk of a fatal pulmonary embolism by 40 per cent. People who watched five or more hours of TV daily were more than twice as likely to die early than those watching fewer than 2.5 hours.

Pulmonary embolism usually begins as a clot in the leg or pelvis which breaks free and becomes lodged in a small blood vessel in the lungs.

More than a quarter of people who suffer an untreated pulmonary embolism die and death can be sudden.

Professor Hiroyasu Iso, from Osaka University, said pulmonary embolism is less common in Japan than Western countries but it may be on the rise.

Writing in the American Heart Associatio­n journal Circulatio­n he warned: “The Japanese are increasing­ly adopting sedentary lifestyles.”

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