If you’re on the verge of developing diabetes, parking yourself in front of the TV might be one of the worst things you could do for your health, a new study suggests.
Every extra hour a person with prediabetes spends watching TV each day raises their risk of developing full-blown type 2 diabetes by 3.4 percent, according to research published April 1 in the journal Diabetologia.
The study couldn’t prove cause-and-effect. But the increased risk associated with being a couch potato occurred whether or not the study participants were taking diabetes drugs, or whether or not they were eating healthy diets and exercising, the researchers found.However, people who tried to prevent diabetes through healthy lifestyle changes did end up watching less television over time, the study found.
The results are troubling, given the epidemic of obesity that continues to plague the United States, said senior study author Andrea Kriska, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health.
Cut Off The TV & Cut Your Diabetes Risk was originally published on blackdoctor.org
