In three new studies, researchers found that spending moderate to high amounts of time watching television throughout midlife was linked to greater cognitive decline and lower gray matter volumes in the brain later in life.
Cognition includes one’s abilities to remember, think, reason, communicate and solve problems.
An aging population with multiple factors that do not support a healthy brain may lead to an increased number of people with dementia.
In the first study, a team from Columbia University examined television viewing in midlife and cognitive decline later in life.
They tested 10,700 adults. All participants provided self-reported assessments of television viewing at Visit 1 (1987-1989) and Visit 3 (1993-1995) to detail their level of television viewing each time.
The team found compared to people reporting that they never or seldom watched TV, participants reporting that they sometimes or often/very often watched TV had a 6.9% greater decline in cognitive function over 15 years.
This suggests worse changes in performance on cognitive tests over the course of the study.
In the second study, the team tested 1,601 adults. All participants (mean age of 76.2 years) self-reported their level of television viewing at Visit 1 and Visit 3 and then underwent a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of the brain.
Using the brain MRI scans, researchers looked at several structural brain markers, including deep gray matter volume in the brain of each participant.
Gray matter is the darker tissue of the brain and spinal cord and it is involved in muscle control, seeing and hearing, decision-making and other important brain functions.
The team found those who said they sometimes or often/very often watched TV had lower volumes of deep gray matter more than a decade later in life, which indicates greater brain atrophy or deterioration.
The association with the level of TV watching to brain gray matter was greater with persistent television viewing throughout midlife.
In the third study, the team from UAB found a correlation between television viewing and the volume of gray matter in the brain.
They used data from a longitudinal study which began in 1985-86 with 5,115 people from four U.S. cities.
During the 20-year study period, (1990-91 to 2010-11), the team found greater television viewing in early to mid-adulthood was linked to lower gray matter volume.
Considering the effect estimates, a one-hour greater mean television time was linked to approximately a 0.5% reduction in gray matter volume which is similar to the annual rate of atrophy throughout mid-late adulthood.
Researchers say that the findings are very timely and important in the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic because we know people are spending more time engaging in sedentary behaviors such as watching television while being in quarantine.
These are interesting correlations among television viewing, cognitive decline and brain structure. Television viewing is just one type of sedentary behavior yet it’s very easy to modify and could make a big difference in maintaining and improving brain health.
If you care about cognitive decline, please read studies about this therapy could strongly boost cognitive functions in older people and findings of this muscle drug may affect cognitive ability in people with kidney diseases.
For more information about cognitive functions and your health, please see recent studies about this type of exercise may boost brain health, prevent cognitive decline and results showing that two big risk factors for cognitive decline.
The study was presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle & Cardiometabolic Health Conference 2021. One researcher of the studies is Kelley Pettee Gabriel, M.S., Ph.D., FAHA.
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