Lengthy TV Viewing Tied to Increased Morbidity, Mortality

Two hours of TV per day tied to elevated risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and mortality

15 june 2011---- Prolonged television viewing is associated with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, fatal or nonfatal cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality, according to a meta-analysis published in the June 15 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Anders Grøntved, M.P.H., from the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, and Frank B. Hu, M.D., Ph.D., from Harvard Medical School in Boston, reviewed available literature to assess the association between television viewing and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, fatal or nonfatal cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality. A total of eight eligible studies were identified, with four studies reporting results for type 2 diabetes mellitus (6,428 incident cases out of 175,938 participants), four for fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular disease (1,052 incident cases out of 34,253 participants), and three for all-cause mortality (1,879 deaths out of 26,509 participants).

The investigators found that two hours of television viewing per day was associated with a significantly increased risk of type 2 diabetes, fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality, with pooled relative risks of 1.20, 1.15, and 1.13, respectively. The risk of all-cause mortality increased even more with television viewing of more than three hours per day. Two hours of viewing per day was associated with an absolute risk of 176 cases of type 2 diabetes, 38 cases of fatal cardiovascular disease, and 104 deaths for all-cause mortality per 100,000 individuals per year.

"Prolonged TV viewing was associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality," the authors write.

Abstract
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