Insights \ Health Hits

This news just in: Watching too much television may be harmful to your health.

If you're not exactly overwhelmed by this "news," the results of a new study published June 15 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, you might be surprised by some of the details.

For example, watching too much TV isn't an uniquely American problem. Europeans spend an average of 40 percent of their daily free time in front of the television set and Australians spend half their free time watching TV--roughly three to four hours of TV a day.

Still, that's less time than people in the U.S., who average about 5 hours in front of the tube a day.

In the new study, Harvard School of Public Health researchers found that watching more than two hours of TV per day increased risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and more than three hours increased risk of premature death.

"Cutting back on TV watching can significantly reduce risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and premature mortality," said senior author Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard.

Researchers analyzed published studies from 1970 to 2011 that linked TV viewing with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and premature death. They found that more than two hours of TV viewing per day increased risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease and more than three hours of daily viewing increased risk of premature death.

For each additional two hours of TV viewing per day, risks of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and premature death increased by 20, 15, and 13 percent respectively. Researchers estimated that among 100,000 individuals per year, each 2-hour increment in TV viewing per day was associated with 176 new cases of type 2 diabetes, 38 new cases of fatal cardiovascular disease and 104 new cases of all-cause mortality.