Shafaqna English- A sedentary lifestyle such as watching TV (two or more hours daily) may be a key factor in the risk of developing heart and blood vessel diseases, according to an analysis of health records from a large biomedical database.
This study is one of the first to examine how the genetic risk for Type 2 diabetes may interact with TV viewing in relation to the future risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
“Type 2 diabetes and a sedentary lifestyle, including prolonged sitting, are major risk factors for atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases. 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.
This study examined data from a large biomedical database and research resource containing genetic, lifestyle and medical records for 346,916 U.K. adults, average age of 56 years, and 45% male. During nearly 14 years of follow-up, the study identified 21,265 people who developed atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
For each participant, researchers calculated a polygenic risk score for Type 2 diabetes based on 138 genetic variants associated with the condition. A polygenic risk score is a statistical method to predict a person’s risk of developing a particular disease or condition by combining information from many genetic variants.
To categorize participants into genotype TV-viewing groups, researchers combined three categories of Type 2 diabetes genetic risk: low, medium and high, with two categories of participants who self-reported through questionnaires: watching TV either one hour or less a day, or two hours or more each day.
Evaluations indicated that participants with medium and high Type 2 diabetes genetic risk did not have a higher risk of developing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease as long as TV viewing was limited to one hour or less daily.
Source: American Heart Association