Binge-watching and boxsets can be fatal, say scientists

Watching too much TV can be fatal, a new study has found. Hours of inactivity slumped in front of a television raises the risk of dying from a blood clot in the lungs, say scientists.

The Japanese team studied the television viewing habits of more than 86,000 people aged 40 to 79 between 1988 and 1990. They found that every additional two hours of TV watching per day increased the risk of fatal pulmonary embolism by 40%.

Participants who watched five or more hours of TV programmes daily were more than twice as likely to die than those watching less than 2.5 hours. Spending 2.5 to 4.9 hours watching television raised the risk of embolism death by 70%. During the 19-year follow-up period, a total of 59 pulmonary embolism deaths were recorded.