How turning off TV could prevent 1 in 9 heart disease cases
TELEVISION is a major contributor to heart disease, with one in nine cases being preventable if people spent less time in front of it, a study has concluded.
Watching TV is a particular risk for the heart, experts say, because viewers sit for hours without moving while also eating unhealthy snacks.
Researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Hong Kong looked at more than 373,000 people who took part in a UK study.
These people, aged 40 to 69, were asked how much TV they watched during their free time.
They were followed up for an average of 12 years, during which time 9,185 of them were diagnosed with coronary heart disease.
Those who watched TV for no more than an hour a day were 16 per cent less likely to develop coronary heart disease than people who watched four or more hours.
The researchers concluded that almost 11 per cent of cases could be prevented if people cut television viewing from two or more hours a day to one hour or less.
Health experts have backed the findings, encouraging people to go for a walk, or try doing squats and pressups during ad breaks.
Dr Youngwon Kim, assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong and visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge, who led the study, said: ‘There could be several explanadevelop tions. We tend to watch TV for prolonged, uninterrupted periods, which may slow down blood flow. Also we might snack on unhealthy foods.’
The study, published in the journal BMC Medicine, found a link between TV and heart disease even when people’s genetic risk of the condition was taken into account.
Researchers discovered people who spent an hour or less in front of the TV were 6 per cent less likely to coronary heart disease than those who watched TV for two or more hours a day.
They were 16 per cent less likely than those watching four or more hours of TV, even when other factors were accounted for.
But the time people spent on computers was not linked to a greater risk of heart disease, probably because people sit in front of the TV for longer, uninterrupted periods, particularly after dinner.
In the UK 2.3million people have coronary heart disease, suggesting that 250,000 could have avoided it by watching less TV.
However the study looked at middle-aged white people only, so may not be applicable to others.
Chloe MacArthur, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: ‘Most of us watch TV sitting down, and we know from decades of research that leading a sedentary lifestyle can lead to health problems later in life, including an increased risk of coronary heart disease.
‘When the temptation hits you to watch one more episode, try standing up and stretching or go for an evening stroll instead.’
‘Go for an evening stroll instead’
AS JOHN MCENROE used to say: You cannot be serious! That was my immediate reaction when I heard that Boris is considering appointing discredited cop Bernard Hyphen-Howe as the new head of Britain’s so-called ‘FBI’.
We’re not talking J. Edgar Hoover here. during his disastrous time as Met Commissioner, Hyphen-Howe was responsible for some scandalous abuses of police power and miscarriages of justice.
Where to start? The criminally botched Paedos In High Places inquiry — aka operation Midland — ruined the lives of distinguished, innocent men and their families on the word of a notorious fantasist.
Same goes for the knee-jerk pursuit of blameless disc-jockeys and TV personalities falsely accused of decades-old sex crimes in the wake of the police’s failure to nick Jimmy Savile. Hyphen-Howe also spent £30 million hounding 21 journalists — variously accused of phone hacking and paying civil servants for information. Not one was convicted.
Homes were ransacked during outrageous ‘fishing expeditions’. Innocent men and their loved ones were treated like terrorists.
Yet when he left office under a cloud, Hyphen-Howe was rewarded with a peerage and a job in the Cabinet office. He has a £5 million pension pot and a Swiss chalet.
When he was london Mayor, Boris is said to have wanted Hugh orde, not HyphenHowe, as commissioner but was overruled by then Home Secretary Theresa May.
So what’s changed now? Why is the man who wrecked The Met considered by the PM to be the outstanding candidate to take over the National Crime Agency? Something stinks here. And you don’t have to be J. Edgar Hoover to work that out.
FORMER world boxing champion Glenn McCrory has been charged with threatening and abusive behaviour. his alleged crime is to have addressed two teenage waitresses as ‘pet’. he’s been bailed to appear in court in August so we must await the evidence against him. But there’s nothing hateful about ‘pet’, a term of endearment in McCrory’s native County Durham. i used to have a lovely Geordie secretary who called me — and everyone else — ‘pet lamb’. Do you think i should call the police and have her charged with a ‘historic hate crime’?