Couch potatoes more liable to get adult-onset diabetes
( 2001-06-25 10:56 ) (7 )

Men who watch 20 hours of television or more a week are twice as likely to develop late-onset diabetes as their peers who spend an hour or less in front of the goggle box on a weekly basis, according to a study released Sunday.

Researchers from Boston who studied data on more than 37,000 men, reported that the men who spent a significant amount of time watching TV sharply increased their risk for the condition which typically occurs in overweight adults aged 40 and over.

Compared to men who sat in front of the television for an hour or less a week, the men who spent between two and ten hours on the couch were 66 percent more likely to develop diabetes.

The risk was double for the group who notched up between 21 and 40 hours a week in this position, and almost three times as great for the 40-hour plus group.

The findings show that "sedentary lifestyle indicated by prolonged TV watching is directly related to diabetes risk," the authors of the study wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association's Archives of Internal Medicine.

Previous studies have shown that exercise is key to preventing this form of diabetes, and that people who watch a lot of television are more likely to gain weight and become obese.

But the correlation between sedentary behaviours, such as TV-watching, has not been fully explored, the study said, noting that the average American male spends 29 hours a week watching TV compared to 34 for the average American woman.

About 16 million Americans are thought to have type 2 diabetes, symptoms of which include excessive thirst and urination, fatigue and weight loss.

The condition is usually managed with diet and exercise, but it can lead to nerve damage, blurred vision, and kidney complications.

The study was conducted by Frank Hu and his colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston who looked at data from the Health Professional's Follow-up Study which tracked 37,918 men aged 40-75 for 10 years.