Excessive daily TV watching may increase risk of death

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-07/aha-edt072016.php

Public Release: 25-Jul-2016
Excessive daily TV watching may increase risk of death
American Heart Association Rapid Access Journal Report
American Heart Association

Watching a lot of television every day may increase your risk of dying from a blood clot in the lung, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation.

A lung blood clot, known medically as a pulmonary embolism, usually begins as a clot in the leg or pelvis as a result of inactivity and slowed blood flow. If the clot breaks free, it can travel to a lung and become lodged in a small blood vessel, where it is especially dangerous.

From 1988 to 1990, Japanese researchers asked 86,024 participants, age 40-79, how many hours they spent watching TV. Over the next 19 years, 59 participants died of a pulmonary embolism.

Researchers found that compared to participants who watched TV less than 2.5 hours each day, deaths from a pulmonary embolism increased by:

70 percent among those who watched TV from 2.5 to 4.9 hours
40 percent for each additional 2 hours of daily TV watching; and
2.5 times among those who watched TV 5 or more hours.

"Pulmonary embolism occurs at a lower rate in Japan than it does in Western countries, but it may be on the rise," said Hiroyasu Iso, M.D., Ph.D., professor of public health at Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine and study corresponding author. "The Japanese people are increas

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