It turns out your overprotective mother may have been right: Too much television may, in fact, kill you. A new international study is suggesting that anyone who spends more than four hours a day in front of any "screen-based entertainment" - be it television, videogames or the internet - is increasing their chance of heart attack or stroke by 113%, regardless of any exercise routine to the contrary.
The problem, however, isn't the screen-based entertainment itself, but that it means the participant is spending that time sitting down, according to the report's lead author, Emmanuel Stamatakis from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College in London:
“Assuming that leisure-time screen time is a representative indicator of overall sitting, our results lend support to the idea that prolonged sitting is linked to an increased risk for cardiovascular disease and premature mortality... I would speculate that the list of sitting-specific health harms will be getting longer and longer in the years to come; this area of research is in its infancy.”
The report puts forward the theory that sitting reduces the activity of an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase by up to 90%, which can lead to an increase in fats like triglycerides in the blood, as well as potentially impair glucose metabolism, suggesting a possible link to type two diabetes. Ideally, according to Stamatakis, we should try and move towards a way of life where standing and moving is more common in our daily routine than sitting. Somewhere, Kinect and Wii makers are planning brand new "play our games or die" ad campaigns as you read these very words.
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原來你那位喋喋不休過分關顧你的媽媽可能真的說對了:看太多電視可能會要你的命!一項新的國際研究顯示,每天沉迷于“屏幕上的娛樂”——如電視、電子游戲、上網——超過4小時的人,爆發心臟病或中風的幾率會增加113%,即使經常鍛煉身體也于事無補。
據研究報告的第一作者、倫敦大學學院流行病學和公共衛生系的 Emmanuel Stamatakis 指出,問題不在哪一種屏幕上的娛樂,而是在于長時間坐著不動。他說:
“假定一個人休閑時花在屏幕前的時間代表他總共坐著的時間,那么我們的研究結果支持這樣的結論:坐著的時間長,會提高得心血管疾病和過早死亡的風險。...... 我相信,將來我們會陸續發現越來越多因為坐的時間太長而對身體健康造成的傷害。這方面的研究才剛剛起步。”
該研究報告提出一種理論,就是坐著的時候,人體內的“脂蛋白脂酶”活性會下降,最嚴重的可能下降90%之多,以致血液中的脂肪(如三酸甘油酯)增多,同時可能影響到葡萄糖代謝,因而可能與二型糖尿病的發病有關。Stamatakis 認為,最理想的應對是試圖改變我們的生活方式,在日常生活中多些時間站著和走動,減少坐著不動的時間。當你還在讀這篇文章的時候,也許 Kinect 和 Wii 的制造商已經在策劃推出以“不玩我們的游戲你會早死”為主題的新廣告攻勢呢!