Get Moving, Live Longer

In our house, as my children will tell you, the solution to any problems is to exercise. If you feel tired it will give you energy. If you are sad it will cheer you up. If your immune system is down it will bring it up. ( Click here for proof of that.)

A new study says that exercise might just save your life. In an article posted on Jan. 11 in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, researchers found that each daily hour of television viewing was associated with an 18% increase in death from heart disease and an 11% in overall mortality.

The study followed 8,800 adults ages 25 and older for six and a half years.

In the article from the New York Times, the author of the study, David Dunstan of the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Victoria, Australia, made a very interesting comment. “Even if someone has a healthy body weight, sitting for long periods still has an unhealthy influence on blood sugar and blood fats.”

While I think we intuitively know that spending time sitting at work and then coming home and watching TV or sitting by the computer isn't the best for our health, it's quite surprising to see such a large increase in heart disease in deathly arising from our sedentary lifestyles.