TV May Be Shrinking Your Brain, Study Finds

Watching too much television during midlife may shrink your brain, according to recent research from the University of Southern California.

A recent study published in Alzheimer’s and Dementia: Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association suggests that individuals who reported watching TV “very often” in midlife later showed reduced volume in areas of the brain connected to memory, smaller frontal and occipital lobes, as well as areas of damage in the brain’s white matter linked to aging, stroke risk, cognitive decline and dementia.

“For years we’ve focused on how much people sit. Our findings suggest we should also pay attention to what they’re doing while they’re sitting,” David Raichlen, professor of biological sciences and anthropology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and a senior author of the study, said in a July 16 statement.

Compared with individuals who said they “never” or “seldom” watch TV, those who watched TV “very often” showed “widespread structural differences across the brain,” according to the study.

“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,” Natan Feter, the study’s corresponding author and a postdoctoral scholar in the Human and Evolutionary Biology program at USC Dornsife, said in a statement.

The USC researchers analyzed data from roughly 1,700 adults who had an average age of 53, who enrolled in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study between 1987 and 1989.

Additionally, watching four or more hours of TV per day has been linked to a higher risk of developing brain-based disorders like dementia, depression, and Parkinson’s disease, according to an analysis from Harvard Health Publishing.

Americans watch a little over three hours of TV per day on average, according to estimates from CableCompare.com.