A Japanese study suggests that individuals who watch more than four hours of TV per day and engage in ‘binge-watching’ are at higher risks of dying by a Pulmonary Embolism (PE). The risks might be higher, depending on lifestyle choices.
It is nothing but common to spend hours watching your favorite TV show or take advantage of those TV marathons on weekends. A new study held by Japanese scientists, advises viewers to reduce their TV hours. An excess of body inactivity and reduced blood flow could trigger the possibilities of suffering from PE, which typically starts as a small clot in the pelvis or the leg. The formed clot can travel up to a lung and become a death threat to the patient.
The information gathered by the study seeks to advise a more active and healthy lifestyle to TV lovers, and that could be risking their lives.
Controlling TV hours could avoid a pulmonary embolism
The study’s first author Dr. Toru Shirakawa, along with his team of scientists, performed a 19 years study in over 86,000 Japanese citizens. The average age rate started at 40-years old and ended in 70.
The research asked citizens their TV habits and how much time would they typically spend in front of the TV. For 19 years, researchers monitored the subjects health and habits in front of the TV, finding that 59 subjects had died during that time from a PE.
Researchers transferred the collected data and found that those subjects who watched from 2.5 to 4.9 hours of TV per day, had a 70 percent bigger chance of dying and suffering from a PE. Those subjects that watched 2.5 or fewer hours of daily television had fewer chances of suffering from a PE. The percentage increased 40 percent, for every two additional hours of TV watching in every subject.
After publishing the study, Shirakawa noted that the chances of suffering from PE might be even bigger nowadays since when the study first started video streaming wasn’t invented and ‘binge-watching’ wasn’t possible.
Dr. Shirakawa also notes that the numbers could be higher for Americans than for Japanese citizens since Americans have more TV habits than the Japanese public. Also, PE is more common in Western countries. Sedentarism is becoming more common in every population, regardless of the nationality and researchers are concerned more deadly diseases could affect the TV public.
Researchers advise watchers, to stretch after every hour in front of the screen, go for a walk, flex the muscles, etc. Newsbeat recommends playing Pokemon Go to stretch.
The study’s findings were published on July 25th in the journal Circulation.
Source: CBS News