Watching television for three and-a-half hours a day can kill you.

This is according to US scientists who equated viewing habits with deadly diseases.

Spend a normal evening in front of the box watching Enders, Corry, Lewis and The Graham Norton Show and you are 15% more likely to die from cancer, liver disease or Parkinson’s.

Make that seven hours a day and the kill rate goes up to 47%.

Just don’t get into boxed sets and watch the entire 50-hour run of Game of Thrones at one sitting.

You could have snuffed it by the last episode.

Suicide rates were also higher among prolonged TV addicts, which may not be a surprise, considering some of the rubbish being screened these days plus the endless repeats..

“Oh no. Not another series of Murder She Wrote.”

This latest health scare comes on top of all the rest.

The other week we had killer bacon, which sounds like a horror movie based on Three Little Pigs wreaking revenge against home invaders: “These pigs don’t get rash – they get even.”

The World Health Organisation ranked bacon, ham and sausages as a major risk to well-being, and placed processed meats in the same category as asbestos and arsenic.

Oh for those good old days when granny could nip down to the chemist fora bottle of laudanum to help the baby sleep.

Nothing like a touch of morphine to ensure bed time was peaceful. The WHO gave a red light warning on red meat as well, which puts the kibosh on steak and chips.

Let’s not forget sugar, that dastardly carbohydrate, has also been named high on the list of Most Dangerous Threats to the future of the Western world.

And we should all wear tin hats in case of attack by salt, saturated fats, caffeine, tobacco, alcohol and Mad Cow Disease.

Good grief, it was only a few months ago, we were being warned that 75% of fresh supermarket chickens were contaminated by a food poisoning bug that was exacerbated into raging activity if you washed the chicken before cooking.

Who, in their right mind, would wash a chicken?

“Nearly done, dear. Just got the parson’s nose to finish with a dab of Dove and I’ll pop it in the oven.”

How on earth did our ancestors survive during the war years when the major food risk was actually not obtaining it?

They ate anything. This was a generation brought up on bread and dripping and they didn’t do too bad on it.

It’s all very well experts grabbing headlines with scare stories but being hit by a bus is likely to be more fatal than a slice of chocolate gateaux.

I shall continue to eat and drink what I like in moderation and scientists can go and fulminate in their laboratories to their heart’s content (until some survey discovers fulminating is bad for you as well).

Me? I’m stocking up with sausage rolls, snacks and a case of beer and have planned regular bacon butty breaks during a 50-hour session with Game of Thrones.