Men who watch more than four hours of TV a day significantly increase their risk of developing bowel cancer, researchers have found.

研究人员发现，男性每天看电视超过4小时，患肠癌的风险明显增加。

Experts tracked 500,000 British people for six years - and found a significant link between sedentary behavior and bowel cancer risk.

But the strongest risk was found among men, particularly those who watched lots of television.

The scientists, from the University of Oxford, Imperial College London and the UN International Agency for Research on Cancer, found men who sat in front of the television for more than four hours a day were 35 percent more likely to develop bowel cancer.

For women the increased risk of television watching was just 11 percent - but when they examined the figures they found this was not statistically significant.

Intriguingly, they found no link between computer screen time and bowel cancer risk.

The researchers suspect men are more likely to smoke, drink and eat junk food than women while watching TV.