Health Female: Here's How Much TV Increases Your Risk of Early Death

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Here's How Much TV Increases Your Risk of Early Death

Here's How Much TV Increases Your Risk of Early Death

We should all know by now that exercise is one of the most reliable ways to extend your life, and we're also learning that not moving is a good way to shorten it. A new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine has found that the folks who watched three to four hours of TV per day were fifteen percent more likely to die during the fourteen-year period during which they were being studied.

More specifically, for every two hours of TV watched per day, the participants were 56 percent more likely to die from diabetes, 24 percent more likely to die of influenza or pneumonia, 23 percent more likely to die of heart disease, 7 percent more likely to die of cancer and, interestingly, 43 percent more likely to commit suicide.

Possible explanations include the fact that inactivity is bad for the immune system (which ups the risk of contracting any illness), and a lot of TV generally means not much socializing, which is also important for overall health.