Do you sit in front of the TV for a long time? It has a fatal effect on your heart

Ischemic heart disease affects up to 4 percent. people in Europe. Its development is influenced by many factors, and some of them do not depend on us. However, there are elements that can only be influenced by ourselves. This includes sedentary lifestyle. Recent studies show that one in 10 cases of coronary heart disease could be prevented if TV viewing was restricted to less than an hour a day.

1. Coronary heart disease (coronary artery disease) is the result of atherosclerotic changes in the arteries that reduce their diameter, which leads to reduced blood flow and reduced oxygen supply to the heart
2. It is estimated that 100 people die in Poland due to ischemic heart disease each year. people
3. Some of these cases could be avoided. It is enough to limit sitting in front of the TV
4. You can find more such stories on the TvoiLokony home page

Sitting in front of the TV is bad for your heart

Probably everyone knows that sitting in front of the TV for a long time is not a particularly healthy habit. From time to time there are studies saying that this increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Another one, published in the e-journal “BMC Medicine”, has just been published. The team led by Dr. Youngwin Kim from the University of Hong Kong examined how time spent watching TV affects the risk of coronary heart disease. It turned out that 11 percent. coronary artery disease cases could have been prevented if the patient had limited watching television from two or more hours a day to less than one.

‘Reducing the time spent watching TV should be recognized as a key element in the prevention of coronary heart disease, regardless of genetic susceptibility and traditional risk markers,’ commented Dr Kim.

However, it was not possible to demonstrate in the study what exactly the mechanism was. But Kim noted that previous research had shown that long-term television viewing was associated with elevated levels of cholesterol and glucose in the body.

“Adverse levels of these markers of cardiometabolic disease may lead to an increased risk of developing coronary heart disease,” he said.

The more television there is, the greater the risk of coronary heart disease

For the research, Kim’s team used the data of over 373. Caucasian British 40-69 years old located in the UK Biobank, which is a huge database of the health of UK residents.

None of the study participants had a history of coronary heart disease or stroke when entered the database. The authors of the study, however, detected 9 thousand. 185 cases of ischemic disease after examining the national death registry and hospital admission records by fall 2021.

The study shows that – after taking into account also the genetic risk of coronary heart disease calculated for each participant, as well as elements such as body weight, age, gender, smoking, diet and physical activity intensity – the more TV programs watched, the more greater risk of developing coronary heart disease.

Compared with people who watched TV for at least four hours a day, people who watched TV for an hour or less had 16 percent lower risk of developing coronary heart disease. Compared to the group that watched TV for two to three hours a day, the risk was 6%. lower.

According to the authors of the study, this relationship occurs at all ages and at all levels of genetic risk, although people with a higher genetic risk of ischemic heart disease had a higher risk of developing this disease.

In their conclusions, the scientists estimated that 11 percent. coronary artery disease cases could have been prevented if patients had reduced their television viewing to less than an hour a day, even after considering genetic risk and other factors.

There is much more evidence that increasing your active time by replacing the time you sit down helps lower body fat, prevent weight gain, improve blood pressure and fat levels, and lower your risk of diabetes. And all of these factors, in turn, reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, commented Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic disease at Glasgow University.

Coronary artery disease – what is it?

Coronary heart disease, or ischemic heart disease, is a set of symptoms that occur when cells are not supplied with sufficient oxygen and nutrients. Oxygen is an essential element for the proper functioning of the heart. The pain that accompanies coronary artery disease is called angina pectoris or angina pectoris.

The possibility of delivering oxygen to the heart muscle depends on various factors:

1. the anatomical structure of the coronary vessels of the heart,
2. the conditions and degree of gas exchange in the respiratory organ,
3. the possibility of transporting oxygen from the place of collection to the place of demand,
4. the number of red blood cells and the hemoglobin that oxygen binds to during transport.

The occurrence of coronary artery disease is influenced by many causes that we divide into primary and secondary factors.

The causes of primary coronary artery disease include:

1. atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries,
2. storing products of abnormal metabolic changes in the walls of the coronary arteries,
3. coronary artery embolism,
4. narrowing of the coronary arteries,
5. congenital underdevelopment of the coronary arteries,
6. injuries leading to narrowing of the coronary arteries, e.g. compression by a hematoma after an injury.

The causes of secondary coronary artery disease are:

1. hypotension;
2. carbon monoxide poisoning;
3. abnormal contraction of the coronary artery wall;
4. coronary artery spasm caused by the medications taken;
5. anemia;
6. narrowing of the lumen of the artery due to poorly running arterial muscle bridges.

Coronary artery disease – symptoms

The symptoms associated with coronary artery disease usually become active in response to stress, exposure to cold, the consumption of large meals, and exercise.

The most common symptoms are

1. shallow breathing
2. chest pain – especially pain behind the breastbone which radiates to the lower jaw, back and left limb,
3. pressure behind the breastbone,
4. nausea,
5. palpitations,
6. faster heart beat
7. sweating
8. dizziness,
9. weakness.

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