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A six-year study<\/a> of nearly 9,000 Australians, reported online in Circulation, has found that for every hour spent watching TV per day, the watcher’s chances of death due to heart attack rose by 18 percent, and his or her chances of dying, period, went up by 11 percent. Those who watched the tube for four or more hours per day were 80 percent likelier to die of heart disease than those who watched for under two hours daily.<\/p>\n Mind you, it’s not that the quality of the programming is deadly (although you could make a case for that). In fact, a twelve-year study of 17,000 Canadians found the higher risk of death among those who spent more time sitting for whatever reason: be it work, school, driving, reading, balancing the books or video gaming. And neither is this phenomenon due to a lack of exercise; in the Canadian study, even fit and trim gym regulars were subject to the sitting-will-kill-you effect. The determining factor is simply a Scientists seem to have a grip on the mechanism involved: After around four hours of sitting, the muscles go dead, signaling the genes that regulate our body’s fat and glucose to stop producing a key enzyme that sucks fats from the bloodstream, allowing those fats to build up in the arteries. Unfortunately, this meagre knowledge still leaves us looking for answers to several significant questions such as:<\/p>\n The experts speculate that small exercise breaks throughout the day might help to reverse this effect, given that the typical exercise pattern — single daily sessions — doesn’t appear to. More research is needed, and in light of a 2003-2004 survey which found that Americans spend over half their waking hours seated, will probably be forthcoming.<\/p>\n In the meantime, we don’t know exactly how much damage is done by how much sitting, but we do know that our bodies were not designed to sit as much as they do, and that the more often a person can get up and move, the better for his or her health and longevity. So get off your butts, America.<\/p>\n (By Robert S. Wieder for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)<\/p>\n From the RSS feed of CalorieLab News<\/a> (REF3076322B7)<\/p>\n
\nmatter of prolonged time spent seated.<\/p>\nIt’s Not Just Residents of Death Row That Have Reason to Avoid the Chair<\/h3>\n
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