It’s tempting to binge-watch TV shows, and it might be hard to get off the couch after just one or two episodes.
But it could be worth it.
Researchers calculated that if people committed to watching just under an hour of TV a day, 11% of coronary heart disease cases could be eliminated.
Though sedentary behavior or sitting for long stretches has previously been linked to coronary heart disease, this study turned the lens on screen-based sitting, including watching TV and leisure-time computer use.
The team also factored in a person’s DNA, creating scores for the risk of developing coronary heart disease based on 300 genetic variants known to influence this common health condition.
“Our study provides strong evidence on the potential role that limiting time watching TV could play in the prevention of coronary heart disease,” says Youngwon Kim, an assistant professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong.
“People should try to reduce the amount of time watching TV, but at the same time, there are other measures that they might take, such as breaking up their TV viewing and doing some light exercise in between,” Kim adds.
The researchers found that people with higher polygenic risk scores (individual genetic risk) were at the greatest risk of developing coronary heart disease.
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Who’s most at risk?
People who watched TV more than four hours a day were at the greatest risk, regardless of their genetic risk scores.
Compared to those with the highest risks, people who watched two or three hours of TV a day had a