HONG KONG (Dispatches) -- A new research says that People who watch more than four hours of TV per day are at greatest risk of coronary heart disease regardless of an individual’s genetic makeup.
Dr Youngwon Kim, assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong said that their study provided unique insights into the potential role that limiting TV viewing might have in preventing coronary heart disease , independent of their genetic risk.
A team of scientists at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge and the University of Hong Kong created polygenic risk scores for each individual -- that is, their genetic risk of developing coronary heart disease based on 300 genetic variants known to influence their chances of developing the condition. As expected, individuals with higher polygenic risk scores were at greatest risk of developing the condition.
The World Health Organization recommends reducing the amount of sedentary behaviour and replacing it with physical activity of any intensity as a way of keeping healthier. While it isn’t possible to say for certain that sitting watching TV increases your risk of coronary heart disease, because of various potential confounding factors and measurement error, our work supports the WHO’s guidelines. It suggests a straightforward, measurable way of achieving this goal for the general population as well as individuals at high genetic risk of coronary heart disease