Do you own a car & TV? Study finds that if so you up the odds of a heart attack

This headline may seem strange at first but just keep reading.

A new study has found that people who own both a car and a television have upped their odds of of potential risk factors for heart attacks.

Why?

Because researches found that people who own both a car and television are less likely to exercise.

“Much is already known about the association between physical activity and cardiovascular risk, but what this study adds, among many other things, is a global perspective,” study author Professor Claes Held, an associate professor at Uppsala University Hospital in Sweden, said in a press release “The study shows that mild to moderate physical activity at work, and any level of physical activity during leisure time reduces the risk of heart attack, independent of other traditional risk factors in men and women of all ages,” he added.

Researchers studied 29,000 people from 52 countries and “compared the work and leisure habits of more than 10,000 people who suffered heart attacks, with the daily habits of more than 14,000 healthy individuals. Besides surveying the participants on their exercise habits or lack thereof, the researchers asked participants whether they owned a car, motorcycle, radio, television – or land and livestock,” according to CBS News.

The results?

The people that owed a TV and a car were 27 percent more likely to have a heart attack, the study found.

And here’s the really interesting part. Light physical activity cut the risk of heart attack by 13 percent while strenuous physical activity like swimming, cycling or running cut the risk of heart attack by 24 percent.

“We should put a stop to the pandemic of sedentarism,” researches wrote in the study. “Staying physically fit throughout life may well be one of the easiest, cheapest, and most effective ways to avoid the coronary care unit.”