Is 'Oprah' Bad For The Brain?

From Newsmax:

'Oprah' may be bad for the brain, according to a surprising new study of the effects of TV viewing on brain function.

Done by researchers at New York's Brooklyn College, the study found that elderly women who watch daytime soap operas and talk shows are more likely to suffer from cognitive impairment than women who don't watch them.

There's definitely "something going on with those two types of television programming," said study co-author Joshua Fogel, an assistant professor of behavioral sciences at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

In the study, Fogel and a colleague looked at data from a 1996 study of healthy women in Baltimore aged 70-79.

The researchers asked the women about their favorite types of TV shows, offering a list of 14 options including news, soap operas, comedies and game shows. The women were also given tests for memory, decision-making ability and other cognitive skills.

Of the 289 older women without dementia in the study, those who rated talk shows and soaps as their favorites did more poorly on tests of memory, attention and mental quickness than women who preferred other types of shows.

They also showed more clinical impairment. Those who favored soaps were more than seven times more likely to show signs of impairment on one of the tests, while talk show fans were more than 13 times more likely to show impairment.

Fogel said he doesn't know whether the programs somehow contribute to cognitive decline or whether women in the early stages of decline gravitate toward those shows.

The study doesn't mean that 'Oprah' is bad for you, Fogel said, but fondness for the show may signal a possible problem.

The findings appear in the Southern Medical Journal.