[AO] ...A recent study conducted in the UK found for every hour a day that a person spends watching TV increases the risk of death by heart disease by 7 per cent.

People in the UK spend an average of four hours a day in front of the goggle box. The study is making waves in the UK, where heart disease causes 193,000 deaths a year and is responsible for a third of the deaths there.

People here also have cause for worry. Statistics from the Ministry of Health show that heart disease accounted for 20.1 per cent of the 17,222 deaths in Singapore in 2008.

Two of the three cardiologists contacted by The New Paper agreed with the study.
The decade-long study, conducted by UK's Medical Research Council, followed 13,197 healthy men and women between 45 and 79 years old from Norfolk - and 373 of them died from heart disease.

That's about one in every 35 people. Dr Katrien Wijndaele, co-author of the study from the Medical Research Council (MRC), warned: "Our bodies are not designed to sit for long periods.

"As we put in the TV hours watching the World Cup, our risk of heart disease is probably increasing."

The amount of time spent watching TV was found to be a significant marker of the participants' likelihood of death from heart disease.

Dr Ong Hean Yee, consultant and head of cardiovascular medicine at the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, believes that people here should be concerned if their TV consumption keeps them from doing the "recommended 30 to 40 minutes of exercise every other day".

He added: "We have known for many years that lack of exercise is strongly linked to premature heart disease."

Dr Goh Ping Ping, chief and senior consultant of the department of cardiology at the Changi General Hospital, said that it was "not enough" to exercise more.

People have to be up and about too. He explained: "Excessively long hours of inactivity - watching TV is a common example - can be risky for cardiovascular health." - Danson Cheong