A new study by a distinguished group of Australian health professionals found that people who spent more than four hours a day sitting in front of the TV were 80 per cent more likely to die from a cardiovascular related disease than those who watched less than two hours. Tracking the lifestyle habits of 8,800 adults over the past seven years, researchers also found they were also moderately more at risk of dying from cancer. And the study accounted for other factors such as smoking, so the association appears to be that the sedentary act of sitting in front of the TV for long periods of time is life threatening. The researchers didn’t test whether excessive tv watching had a similar effect on brain cells.

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