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Yet more money has been spent on one of those researches which brings another shocking statistic to the forefront of your eyes! This time scientists have discovered after taking into account 30,000 people from 52 different countries that those who own both a TV and a car (which I imagine to be quite a high percentage of us all) makes you 27% more likely to suffer from a severe heart failure. Researchers have warned us that these 2 pieces of gadgetry cause 'promote sedentary behaviour' which significantly raises possible risks of heart disease.
Professor Claes Held, of the Uppsala Clinical Research Centre and the Department of Cardiology, at Uppsala University Hospital, Sweden, compared leisure and work habits of 10,043 who had suffered a heart attack in comparison to 14,217 healthy folk!
When comparing people those who were watching TV to those having a healthy run, mild activity was linked to a 13 per cent lower risk of having a heart attack, while moderate or strenuous activity was linked to a 24 per cent reduction.
Respondents whose jobs involved light physical activity had a 22 per cent lower risk compared with those who mainly worked sitting down.
However, moderate activity was linked to a drop of just 11 per cent, while those doing heavy physical labour faced the same risk as their stationary counterparts.
The researchers suggested that the results could be explained by jobs involving anaerobic exercise, one example being heavy lifting, which does not provide the same cardiovascular benefits as aerobic exercise.
Prof Held said few previous studies had looked at the impact of physical activity both at work and during leisure time on heart risk.
He went onto say:
'The study shows that mild to moderate physical activity at work, and any level of physical activity during leisure time reduces the risk of heart attack, independent of other traditional risk factors in men and women of all ages, in most regions of the world and in countries with low, middle or high income levels.
'Interestingly, heavy physical labour at work did not protect against heart attacks.
'Furthermore, ownership of a car and TV, which promotes sedentary behaviour, was found to be independently associated with the risk of heart attacks.'
I cannot understand personally why probably millions of pounds goes into research such as this which literally states the obvious. It is transparently obvious that watching hours upon hours of TV isn't good for you, nor is driving everywhere instead of one of those stereotypical fit and healthy walks! To put it bluntly, we are all going to die at some point and so you may as well not be miserable on the run up! It is a case of stating the downright obvious. We all don't want to be reminded of health benefits when really we all know them for ourselves. Why on earth they wasted the money on researching the amount of people they did I have no idea. For my next world revelation I shall exclusively reveal that smoking is bad for you!
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