Watching less TV could help lower the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and other blood vessel diseases—even for people who have a high genetic risk for Type 2 diabetes, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Researchers found that limiting TV watching to just one hour or less a day may protect people from atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
This condition, often called ASCVD, happens when plaque builds up in the arteries. It can lead to serious health problems like heart disease, stroke, blocked blood flow to the legs, and even early death.
The study is one of the first to explore how a person’s genes for Type 2 diabetes interact with their TV watching habits when it comes to future heart health. Type 2 diabetes and long periods of sitting—like watching TV—are both known to raise the risk for ASCVD. TV time is one of the biggest sources of sitting time during the day for most people.
The study was led by Dr. Youngwon Kim from The University of Hong Kong. The research team looked at health data from over 346,000 adults in the UK, with an average age of 56. They followed these individuals for about 14 years and found that over 21,000 of them developed heart or blood vessel disease during that time.
Each person in the study was given a score to measure their genetic risk for Type 2 diabetes. This score was based on 138 genetic markers. The participants were also divided into groups based on how much TV they watched: one hour or less per day, or two hours or more per day.
Here’s what they discovered: people who watched TV for two hours or more daily had a 12% higher chance of developing ASCVD than those who watched one hour or less—even if their genetic risk for diabetes was high.
In fact, people with high diabetes risk but who watched only one hour or less of TV each day had a lower 10-year chance (2.13%) of developing ASCVD than people with low diabetes risk who watched two or more hours (2.46%).
This shows that watching less TV may help lower heart disease risk, no matter what your genes say about your diabetes risk.
Dr. Mengyao Wang, the study’s first author, said the results suggest that cutting back on TV time could be a powerful way to protect heart health in people with high diabetes risk. Even though we can’t change our genes, we can change our behavior.
Dr. Damon Swift, a heart health expert who wasn’t involved in the study, added that this research supports the idea that sitting for long periods can be harmful to your health. He said this is especially important for people with diabetes, who already face higher risks for heart problems.
However, the researchers noted that most people in the study were white and lived in the UK, so the results might not apply to all groups around the world. Still, the findings offer hope: making simple changes like watching less TV could make a big difference for your heart—even if you’re genetically at risk for diabetes.
If you care about heart health, please read studies about how eating eggs can help reduce heart disease risk, and herbal supplements could harm your heart rhythm.
For more health information, please see recent studies about how drinking milk affects risks of heart disease and cancer, and results showing strawberries could help prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
The study is published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
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