Middle-aged TV watchers hit with urgent warning as California study unveils ominous brain risk

Are they watching Graying Anatomy?

The idea of TV rotting your brain is apparently not just an old wives tale. Spending too much time watching TV in middle age may literally shrink the brain, increasing the risk of dementia and other complications, according to researchers at the University of Southern California.

This screen-induced cerebral shrinkage was detailed in a study in Alzheimer’s and Dementia: Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association

To determine how TV binges affect the middle-aged brain, the researchers analyzed data on 1,700 middle-aged adults who joined the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study — a long term US population survey of heart and brain health — between 1987 and 1989.

The participants, who had an average age of 53, reported the amount of time they spent viewing television during their free time on a scale from “never/seldom” to “very often.” They also had to report how much time they remained sedentary.

Fast forward two decades later and the subjects underwent MRI brain scans. The researchers found that participants who watched TV “very often” had broad structural changes compared to those who “never” or “seldom” viewed the tube.

Specifically, regular viewers showed a reduction in regions of the brain linked to early indicators of Alzheimer’s. They also displayed a higher level of white matter hyper-intensity, a hallmark of a small blood vessel disease in the brain, which is associated with cognitive decline and dementia. 

The same group also had smaller occipital and frontal lobes, the parts of the brain responsible for visual processing and executive functions such as planning and decision-making.

Coincidentally, this rift between TV devotees and infrequent watchers persisted even when the researchers factored in physical activity, body mass index, smoking, alcohol use, and other variables.

This seemed to suggest TV watching — and not sitting by itself — was the primary cause of the cerebral recession.

For instance, those who spent long stretches sitting at work lower amounts of white matter hyperintensity as well as larger occipital and frontal lobes, suggesting that they boasted superior brain health to their screen-addicted counterparts.

The researchers attributed this discrepancy to the alleged intellectually stimulating aspects of sedentary gigs when compared to passive pursuits like watching TV.

“For years we’ve focused on how much people sit,” said senior study author David Raichlen, of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “Our findings suggest we should also pay attention to what they’re doing while they’re sitting.”

Interestingly, men appeared to display the greatest brain effects with regards to both sitting at work and binge-watching TV, according to the MRI scans.

Of course, the research did have a few caveats. For one, the participants’ small screen habits were self-reported, which was far less reliable than monitoring their actual watch time.

As participants did not receive MRI scans at the start of the experiment, there was no way to record how their brain had changed over time.

While this topic needs to be probed more extensively, the results nonetheless show that physicians should shift their approach to health guidance concerning sedentary activities.

“We frequently encourage the public not to spend too much time sitting down, but experts may want to expand that recommendation to encompass the activities done while sitting, since those seem to have distinct impacts on brain health,” declared study co-author Natan Feter, a postdoctoral scholar in the Human and Evolutionary Biology program at USC Dornsife.

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