Too much TV, not enough physical activity may be bad for brain: Study

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Friday 04 Dec 2015 - 13:52 Makkah mean time-22-2-1437 San Francisco, (IINA) - Researchers at the University of California San Francisco found in a long-term study that watching three hours or more of television a day in early adulthood was linked to worse cognitive function in midlife, with people who got less exercise, on top of watching a lot of television, did even worse in cognitive tests, UPI reported. Researchers said that the study’s result was not surprising since physical activity is essential for maintaining cognitive function and brain health. The increasing popularity of binge-watching entire television series or groups of movies had researchers wondering about results of all that screen time on 25-year-old minds in a couple of decades. "The question is what does it mean if you're 50, and you've got these slight changes?" Dr. Kristine Yaffe, a psychiatrist at the University of California San Francisco and lead author of the study, told NPR. "Does it mean you're on a path to greater changes down the line or does not make a difference? I don't think we really know the answer to that". Researchers analyzed data conducted from 3,247 adults who joined the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study in 1985 when they were between the ages of 18 and 30. The mean age of participants was 25.1, 56.5 percent were female, 54.5 percent were white, and 92.9 percent had a high school education at least. Each participant was assessed more than three times between the start of the study and 2011 when it ended. By using the three different tests, the researchers found that people watching three or more hours of television per day were associated with decreased cognitive performance. The 16.3 percent of participants with little physical activity also had lower scores on tests. The combination of low physical activity and lots of television, which applied to 3.3 percent of participants, doubled the chances for people to show reduced cognitive function on the tests. "There are so many more opportunities for sitting now that it's even more of a concern", Tina Hoang, a researcher at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Francisco, told USA Today. "There hasn't been a lot of research showing what these early cognitive changes mean". AG/IINA