The Effects of Tv and Reading on the Brain
Also much Goggle box may be bad for your long-term brain health
Spending lots of time watching TV in midlife may be bad for your encephalon health in your senior years, co-ordinate to findings from 3 new studies.
The studies constitute that people who reported watching moderate to large amounts of Television in their 40s, 50s and early 60s experienced greater cognitive declines, and had lower volumes of gray thing in their brains, in their 70s and 80s, compared with people who reported watching very little Boob tube in midlife. Gray matter is involved in many encephalon functions, including muscle control, vision, hearing and conclusion-making, the researchers said. Higher volumes of gray affair accept been linked with improve cognitive skills.
The studies, which will be presented this week at the American Heart Association'due south Epidemiology, Prevention - Lifestyle & Cardiometabolic Health Conference 2021, used Tv set viewing as a proxy for sedentary behavior, or time spent sitting. A sedentary lifestyle has already been linked with several wellness problems, including an increased take a chance of middle disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes and early decease. What's more, regular practise isn't necessarily enough to brand up for fourth dimension spent sitting — a finding that was seen in both the electric current studies and previous enquiry.
Related: 10 things you didn't know about the encephalon
"In our findings, television viewing remained associated with cognitive function and grayness thing volume after accounting for physical activeness, suggesting that this sedentary beliefs may impart a unique risk with respect to brain and cognitive health," Ryan Dougherty, pb author of one of the studies and a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Wellness in Baltimore, Maryland, said in a statement. Given that the biological processes that underlie dementia, such every bit brain decay, tend to showtime in midlife, "that's a period [where] modifiable behaviors, such as excessive boob tube viewing, can be targeted and reduced to promote healthy brain aging," Dougherty said.
And some studies suggest that, as far as sedentary behaviors go, TV watching may pose particular risks, as it is a passive beliefs that doesn't involve a lot of cognitive stimulation, the researchers said.
"In the context of cognitive and brain health, not all sedentary behaviors are equal; non-stimulating sedentary activities such every bit television viewing are linked to greater take a chance of developing cognitive impairment, whereas cognitively stimulating sedentary activities [such as reading, computer and board games] are associated with maintained noesis and reduced likelihood of dementia," Dougherty said.
Too much TV?
Two of the new studies used data from the Atherosclerosis Take chances In Communities Neurocognitive Study (ARIC-NCS), which began in the mid-1980s, when participants were 45 to 64 years quondam. At that time, they were asked how much they watched Boob tube during their leisure time, with responses recorded as "never or seldom" (low Television receiver watching), "sometimes" (medium/moderate TV watching) or "often/very often" (high TV watching). Researchers followed upward with the participants in the 1990s, when they again answered questions most their TV watching habits and completed cognitive tests. During another evaluation, betwixt 2011 and 2013, they received brain MRI scans to look for structural markers of brain wellness, including the volume of gray affair.
1 study, led past Priya Palta, an assistant professor of medical sciences and epidemiology at Columbia University, analyzed information from 10,700 adults in the ARIC-NCS study. The researchers focused on the results of participants' cognitive tests, which included tests of memory, language and brain processing speed.
They found that people who reported moderate to high TV viewing in midlife experienced a seven% greater decline in cognitive function (based on their test results) over a fifteen-year period, compared with those that reported low TV viewing.
Another study, led past Kelley Pettee Gabriel, a professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, analyzed information from about 1,600 ARIC-NCS participants and focused on the results of their MRI scans.
They found that, compared with people who reported low Tv viewing, those who reported moderate to high TV viewing had lower volumes of gray affair more than a decade later, indicating greater brain deterioration.
"Our findings advise that the amount of television viewing, a type of sedentary behavior, may exist related to cognitive decline and imaging markers of brain health," Palta said. "Therefore, reducing sedentary behaviors, such every bit television viewing, may exist an of import lifestyle modification target to back up optimal encephalon health."
A third written report, led by Dougherty, used information from the Coronary Avenue Risk Development in Immature Adults Study, which likewise began in the mid-1980s but involved people who were in their 30s at the study starting time, and followed these participants for twenty years. The researchers analyzed information from 600 participants, who were asked how many hours per day they spent watching TV, and also underwent brain MRI scans.
They institute that more than Television receiver viewing was tied to lower grayness-matter volume 20 years later. The researchers calculated that each i-hour increase in a person's daily boilerplate TV viewing time was tied to a 0.5% reduction in grey-matter volume. That'south similar to the amount of greyness-matter atrophy that's typically seen over the grade of a twelvemonth in mid to late adulthood, Dougherty said.
Future studies
Although the studies found an clan between TV watching and cognitive decline and reduced encephalon volumes later in life, they cannot bear witness that heavy Goggle box watching really caused these outcomes. Although the studies deemed for some factors that may affect encephalon wellness — including historic period, educational activity level and the presence of certain genes tied to Alzheimer's adventure — they did not enquire about full sedentary time, or tease out TV viewing from other types of sedentary behavior. The studies as well relied on participants' reports of their TV viewing time, which may non exist reliable.
In addition, the studies cannot decide why Telly viewing was linked with these outcomes. Information technology's unclear whether sedentary behavior is indeed responsible for the link or whether some other factors tied to Television watching, such every bit increased nutrient consumption, may play a role.
The researchers said more studies are needed to confirm the findings, including studies that use objective measures of sedentary behavior (like activity trackers), and those that examine differences in passive and active sedentary beliefs, in relation to cognitive decline and brain health markers.
Originally published on Live Scientific discipline.
Source: https://www.livescience.com/tv-watching-midlife-brain-health.html#:~:text=The%20studies%20found%20that%20people,very%20little%20TV%20in%20midlife.
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