A recent study completed in Japan suggests that people who sit in front of the television for more than five hours every day run a risk twice a great as those who don’t to develop blood clots in their lungs. Last year, there were over 200,000 cases of a blood clot that had begun in the legs to travel to the lungs causing a pulmonary embolism. This embolism can cause organ and tissue damage and can also cause death.
Dr. Hiroyasu Iso, lead author on the study, and a professor at the University of Osaka School of Medicine, said that, “We were surprised by the strength of the effect of television watching compared with the effects of advancing age, history of hypertension and diabetes or body mass index in this study. We speculated that leg immobility during television watching had increased their risk of fatal pulmonary embolism.”
The two year research study asked 85,000 people about how much television they happened to be watching on a daily basis. This was from 1988-1990 and the researchers tracked the subjects for 19 years to study the affects. It was determined that the lack of consistent and regular movement or exercising of the legs has led to twice the risk of developing blood clots than in people who don’t live such a sedentary life style.
During the study, 59 people died from a pulmonary embolism. For those who viewed television for less than two hours a day, only 2.8 out of every 100,000 people died from an embolism but the number leaped to a significant 8.2 for those who sat in front of the tube for more than five hours every day.
Since Americans and other Westerners watch far more television than the Japanese do, the numbers could be greatly enhanced with regard to the blood clot risk. Following closely on the heels of television gazing was obesity with regard to the risk of developing blood clots.
Sitting in front of the television also included playing video games as well as too include binge watching which has become so popular of late among Generation Y and the Millennials.
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