Objectively Assessed Exercise Protective Against Depression

Objectively assessed physical activity is associated with a protective relationship with major depressive disorder (MDD), according to a study published online Jan. 23 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Karmel W. Choi, Ph.D., from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues examined bidirectional correlations between physical activity and depression using a genetically informed method for assessing potential causal inference. Independent top genetic variants associated with two physical activity phenotypes (self-reported [377,234 participants] and objective accelerometer-based [91,084 participants]) and with MDD (143,265 participants) were used as genetic instruments from the largest available non-overlapping genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in two-sample Mendelian randomization.

GWAS summary data were available for 611,583 adult participants. Based on evidence from Mendelian randomization, the researchers observed a protective relationship between accelerometer-based activity and MDD (odds ratio, 0.74 for MDD per one-standard deviation increase in mean acceleration; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.59 to 0.92; P = 0.006). No statistically significant correlation was seen between MDD and accelerometer-based activity (β = −0.08 in mean acceleration per MDD versus control status; 95 percent confidence interval, −0.47 to 0.32; P = 0.70). No significant relationship was seen between self-reported activity and MDD or between MDD and self-reported activity.

"Our findings validate a potential protective relationship between physical activity and depression and point to the importance of objective measurement of physical activity in epidemiologic studies of mental health," the authors write.

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