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Couch potatoes riddled with heart disease

Turn off the TV. Now!

Your risk of getting a serious heart problem doubles if you spend more than four hours a day watching TV or playing computer games.

If you spend that much time in front of a screen you are extremely unlikely to be doing enough exercise to counteract the bad effects of couch potato-dom.

This is the headline finding of an Anglo-Australian study based on more than 4,512 adults who completed to the 2003 Scottish Health Survey. Yes, we are talking about Scottish people, who eat more cake and fewer vegetables than anywhere. They also have the highest rate of heart disease in the UK, and Glaswegians have world beating levels of heart attacks.

Dr Emmanuel Stamatakis, of University College London, the report co-author, said: "People who spend excessive amounts of time in front of a screen - primarily watching TV - are more likely to die of any cause and suffer heart-related problems. Our analysis suggests that two or more hours of screen time each day may place someone at greater risk for a cardiac event."

But watching so much TV or playing so many computer games is a marker of physical indolence, surely? Lack of exercise is unhelpful for heart health, but other factors may be more significant.

According to a big Scottish study in 2004, low IQ is second only to smoking as a predictor of increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD).

In other words, stupid people are more likely to get heart disease than clever people. This suggests that stupid Scottish people are more reckless than their stupid English and Welsh brethren. Or … no, we're not going there ...

Stamatakis's research is published this month in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

You don't need a study

to tell you that a large chunk of the British population is obese, sedentary and ignorant....just take a walk down the high street and look about you.

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VDU

Er. We all spend 8 hours a day in front of computer screens at work.

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Screen sitting

I must sit in front of a screen in excess of 8 hours at least 5 days a week. Should I be dead already?

Or...

I spend far too long at work stressing and under immense pressure, therefore I don't have time for couches, TV or computer games; will I live forever?

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What an awesome story

I also conclude from this that if you sit in more than 1 lecture a day at Uni / College / Where-ever then you also have a higher risk.

What about the people that sit for 4 hours or more and do nothing? Or those that sit for 4 or more and shock horror also exercise at some point?

Useless study is well erm useless. Who pays these people?

Bah I was sucked in... coat please.

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Jesus wept! Call out the guard!

Seriously, "Sitting on yer arse all day doing next to no physical movements will lead you to being a fat, lazy bastard who will die of something fat, lazy bastards die off."

Well bugger me with a fish fork!

The HR dept where I am nags us at least once every 6 months about sitting on our arses at the screens all day, telling us to re-focus every 5 mins and get off our backsides once an hour for 5 minutes, this is hardly news is it?

Welcome back to 18th Century thinking, where we the workers are held in the 'dark satanic mills' of the 21st Century!

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