Many of us exercise for an hour a few times a week and assume that takes care of all our heart needs. Not so, apparently, according to a long-term study. Researchers wanted to know the correlation, if any, between the hours spent watching television and heart disease. A second part of the study looked at the correlation between those TV hours and higher Body Mass Index (BMI) and high cholesterol.

What they found is enough to make you toss away the television remote control: Sitting too long is tied to risk of obesity, cancer, heart disease and diabetes. It's the equivalent of smoking cigarettes in a lot of ways.

And even if we get regular exercise, it doesn't counteract the effects of sitting for long hours.

Cardiologist Dr. David Cohen described prolonged sitting as the body going into "storage mode." The longer you sit, the worse the risks. For those still working at desk jobs, he suggested delivering messages down the hall instead of sending email, and in general moving as much as possible.

Some of Cohen's suggestions also can apply to those of us who don't work outside the home: standing up when talking on the telephone, taking stairs when possible, going for walks.

Being up and about is good for weight bearing on long bones and building up bone strength. Moving, even just walking, increases blood flow to limbs, brain and heart.

As a start, I'm still in favor of taking the batteries out of the television remote control. There would be no idle channel surfing, skimming for programs to watch. Instead we'd consult the show listings, get up, walk across the room and change the channel by hand. And who knows, while we're up, we might even decide not to sit back down again.