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Watching Too Much TV Could Literally Shrink Your Brain, Study Finds

Adults who watched TV very often in midlife later showed smaller brain volumes and more signs of white matter damage.

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I hate to do this to you. I hate to tell you that your parents and nagging teachers were right. But they might’ve been. Recently published scientific research suggests that watching TV could literally shrink your brain. Sure, it’s not quite the “rot” your elders once promised would happen to it, but go easy on them. They themselves may have watched so much television that their shrunken brains can’t recall the right word.

According to a study published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, researchers followed about 1,700 adults for more than two decades. They found that people who reported watching television “very often” in midlife later had smaller volumes in several........

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