Key Takeaways

People who watched television for less than an hour had a 16% lower rate of developing coronary artery disease than people who watched four hours or more per day, and people who watched two to three hours of television per day had a 6% lower risk.These findings held true regardless of a person’s genetic predisposition to heart disease.

What Is Coronary Artery Disease?Coronary artery disease (CAD) occurs when blood vessels are too clogged to deliver oxygen-rich blood to the heart. Plaque buildup and a lack of blood flow can damage the heart muscle, potentially causing a heart attack.

What Is Coronary Artery Disease?

Coronary artery disease (CAD) occurs when blood vessels are too clogged to deliver oxygen-rich blood to the heart. Plaque buildup and a lack of blood flow can damage the heart muscle, potentially causing a heart attack.

Youngwon Kim, PhD, the lead researcher on the study and an assistant professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, told Verywell that up to 40% of cardiovascular disease risk can be attributed to genetics. His team wanted to explore to what extent sedentary lifestyle habits influenced risk independently of genetics.

Kim said looking at a computer screen did not seem to increase the risk of heart disease. But he clarified the study only looked at “leisure-time computer use,” not time spent at a computer screen for work, gaming, or watching videos.

To conduct the study, researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Hong Kong used data and genetic information collected from more than 370,000 people in the UK Biobank study cohort (which includes tissue samples from about half a million people who also completed questionnaires about their lifestyles and habits).

The participants’ blood samples were evaluated for 300 gene variants known to have a role in heart disease.

People with high “polygenic risk” scores (i.e., the combined effects of many genetic variants) may have a lifetime risk of about 40% for developing coronary heart disease.

“I want to know for those that were watching less television, what were they doing instead?” said Barnett. “I would have been very interested in seeing where that time went, what was it replaced with.”

Lifestyle Changes Can Prevent Heart Disease, Even for People With Family History

“Even if we’re going from five to four hours, or four to three, or three to two, that’s an improvement,” she said.

What This Means For You

3 SourcesVerywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Kim Y, Yeung SLA, Sharp SJ, et al.Genetic susceptibility, screen-based sedentary activities and incidence of coronary heart disease.BMC Med. 2022;20(1):1-11. doi:10.1186/s12916-022-02380-7National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.What is coronary heart disease?Hasbani NR, Ligthart S, Brown MR, et al.American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7: lifestyle recommendations, polygenic risk, and lifetime risk of coronary heart disease.Circulation. 2022;145(11):808-818. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.121.053730

3 Sources

Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Kim Y, Yeung SLA, Sharp SJ, et al.Genetic susceptibility, screen-based sedentary activities and incidence of coronary heart disease.BMC Med. 2022;20(1):1-11. doi:10.1186/s12916-022-02380-7National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.What is coronary heart disease?Hasbani NR, Ligthart S, Brown MR, et al.American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7: lifestyle recommendations, polygenic risk, and lifetime risk of coronary heart disease.Circulation. 2022;145(11):808-818. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.121.053730

Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Kim Y, Yeung SLA, Sharp SJ, et al.Genetic susceptibility, screen-based sedentary activities and incidence of coronary heart disease.BMC Med. 2022;20(1):1-11. doi:10.1186/s12916-022-02380-7National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.What is coronary heart disease?Hasbani NR, Ligthart S, Brown MR, et al.American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7: lifestyle recommendations, polygenic risk, and lifetime risk of coronary heart disease.Circulation. 2022;145(11):808-818. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.121.053730

Kim Y, Yeung SLA, Sharp SJ, et al.Genetic susceptibility, screen-based sedentary activities and incidence of coronary heart disease.BMC Med. 2022;20(1):1-11. doi:10.1186/s12916-022-02380-7

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.What is coronary heart disease?

Hasbani NR, Ligthart S, Brown MR, et al.American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7: lifestyle recommendations, polygenic risk, and lifetime risk of coronary heart disease.Circulation. 2022;145(11):808-818. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.121.053730

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