Watching Too Much Television Risk Shorten Age

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Spend your days in front of the television can shorten life, a new study shows.

Researchers in Australia found that people who spend their time for an average of 6 hours a day just to watch TV, have a lifespan of 5 years shorter than those who rarely watch television. For every hour of watching television in people aged 25 years and older, the age will be reduced by 22 minutes, according to a study led by Dr. J. Lennert Veerman of the University of Queensland.

But the bottom line is, other experts cautioned that the study does not show that watching TV may cause people to die sooner. This study only shows an association between the length of time watching TV with a short lifespan. Although a direct link between watching TV with the age of a person's life becomes shorter is a very provocative statement, but the danger of the TV almost certainly exist even if indirectly, said Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine.

Actually it is a sensible thing when the habit is too long watching television has a correlation with health problems. "The more time spent watching TV, the more time spent for snacking or eating while watching TV, and the less time is used for the sport," said Katz. "A lot of eating and less activity, the time will be at risk of causing problems of obesity, heart disease, and cancer".

Another explanation for this relationship is that people who watch excessive TV, tend to be people who are experiencing depression, stress, and loneliness. This in turn can be the answer to the real cause of premature death.

The report is published in the online edition of the British Journal of Sports Medicine last August 15. In the study, researchers used data from the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study, in which 11,000 people aged 25 and older, including survey information about how many of those who watch TV in a week. The researchers also used a national population and mortality.

In 2008, Australian adults watch TV for a total of 9.8 billion hours. People who watch TV more than six hours a day in the top 1 percent. Statistics show that watching too much TV as dangerous as smoking, the researchers said. For example, smoking can shorten the life expectancy of more than four years after the age of 50. That means the age of life will be gone 11 minutes for each cigarette, and it is equal to a half hours watching TV, the researchers said. Without TV, researchers estimated life expectancy for men would be 1.8 years longer and for women, 1.5 years longer.

"While we use the data of Australia, the effect in industrialized countries and other developing tend to be the same, considering the time spent watching TV and similar patterns of disease," the researchers said.

Dr. Gregg Fonarow, associate chief of cardiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that "there is strong evidence that spend a long time for sedentary activities such as watching TV and not use it for activities such as exercise, will have a negative impact for health. "

"Staying active and reducing time spent on passive activities such as watching TV, can be beneficial in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and may be considered as part of a comprehensive approach to improve cardiovascular health," Fonarow added.