A new study reveals that every hour spent in front of the television can increase the risk of diabetes. Watching TV is so easy that sitting the whole day or night watching your favorite series or indulging in movie marathons can be an everyday habit.
However, in the study that involved people at a higher risk of developing diabetes or pre-diabetics, their risk of developing full blown diabetes increased by 3.4% with just one hour of TV binge watching. For a day-long binge, it could mean as much as 30% higher risk.
The study was published in the journal Diabetologia and according to Andrea Kriska, an epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh and senior author of the paper on the effects of TV on diabetes risk, "With streaming TV, you can watch a program continuously; instead of watching just half an hour once day a week, you can watch a whole season in a day, so we expect to see increases in sitting to continue."
Dr. Kriska and her group believed that sitting while watching TV can add up to the person's weight which can predispose him or her to diabetes type 2. Mail Online reported that the study involved at least 3,000 overweight men and women over the age of 25. They want to know how to prevent high-risk adults from develop full blown type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Kriska is part and a member of the Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group which discovered that persons who spent more time sitting regardless if they were in front of the television or even in their workplaces, are more likely to develop diabetes than those who sit less. This is even though they exercise daily as reported by Time Magazine.
In the study, they were divided into two groups wherein one group was given Metformin, a common drug used to curb diabetes, one group was recommended to increase activity levels, and the last group was given a placebo pill, or they are the control group.
By 2002, three years after the start of the study, those who modified their lifestyle had lower risk of developing diabetes by as much as 58% compared to 31% for those with the drug metformin.
The study found out that regardless of how much you exercise, sitting takes a toll on your health. So, having less time sitting down and more time being active may curb the effects of diabetes to the body.
"As time goes on and people are getting less active and more overweight, the number of people at risk for diabetes is increasing by leaps and bounds. It's not a rare group of people who could develop an increased risk of diabetes because of their sedentary habits," Dr. Kriska said as reported by Tech Times.
