NEW YORK, Mar 15 (AP): Limiting time spent watching television to no more than one hour each day may lower the risk of heart attack, stroke and other blood vessel diseases, even among people with a high genetic risk for Type 2 diabetes, new research finds.
The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, is one of the first to investigate how genetic risk for Type 2 diabetes might interact with television viewing in relation to future atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, which develops from plaque buildup in the arteries.
"Type 2 diabetes and a sedentary lifestyle, including prolonged sitting, are major risk factors for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease," lead study author Dr. Youngwon Kim said in a news release. Kim is a professor in the School of Public Health at The University of Hong Kong in Pokfulam.
"Watching TV, which accounts for more than half of daily sedentary behavior, is consistently associated with an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis," Kim said. "Our study provides new insights into the roles of limiting TV viewing time in the prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease for everyone and especially in people with a high genetic predisposition for Type 2 diabetes."
Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, or ASCVD, includes heart disease, stroke and peripheral artery disease. It can lead to a lower quality of life, bypass surgery, stenting to open up arteries, amputations and premature death.
In the study, researchers analyzed genetic, lifestyle and medical records for 346,916 adults in a large biomedical database and research resource in the United Kingdom. Participants were an average 56 years old and were followed for nearly 14 years, during which 21,265 people developed ASCVD.
Polygenic risk scores are used to predict a person's chances of developing a disease or condition by combining information from many genetic variants. Using 138 genetic variants associated with Type 2 diabetes, researchers calculated polygenic risk scores for each study participant and then categorized them as having a low, medium or high risk for the condition.
Researchers used self-reporting questionnaires to categorize the participants' TV viewing time, dividing them into those who watched TV for one hour or less and those who watched for two hours or more each day.
About 21% of participants reported watching TV for one hour or less each day. The 79% of participants who watched TV two or more hours each day had a 12% higher risk of developing ASCVD than their peers who watched less TV, regardless of their genetic risk for Type 2 diabetes.
