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. 2022 Sep 6;20(1):290.
doi: 10.1186/s12916-022-02484-0.

Device-measured physical activity and incident affective disorders

Frederick K Ho  1 , Fanny Petermann-Rocha  1   2   3 , Solange Parra-Soto  1   2 , Jirapitcha Boonpor  1   2 , Jason M R Gill  2 , Stuart R Gray  2 , Jill P Pell #  1 , Carlos Celis-Morales #  4   5
Affiliations

Device-measured physical activity and incident affective disorders

Frederick K Ho et al. BMC Med. .

Abstract

Background: Studies on physical activity (PA) and mental health are largely limited to self-reported PA. This study aims to use prospective cohort data to investigate the association between device-measured PA and affective disorders.

Methods: A total of 37,327 participants from UK Biobank who had not had any prior affective disorder diagnoses were included in this prospective cohort study. Wrist-worn accelerometers were used to measure total, light (LPA), moderate (MPA), and vigorous (VPA) PA. Associations between PA domains and affective disorders were analysed using penalised splines in Cox proportional hazard models. Analyses were adjusted for other intensity-specific PA and sociodemographic and lifestyle factors. Sensitivity analyses were conducted adjusting for body mass index and longstanding illnesses as well as excluding events in the first 2 years of follow-up. Preventable fractions for the population were estimated for MPA and VPA.

Results: Over a median follow-up of 6.8 years, 1262 (3.4%) individuals were diagnosed with affective disorders. Replacing 30 min of sedentary behaviour in a week with MPA (HR 0.95, 95% CI 0.94-0.97) or VPA (HR 0.91, 95% CI 0.85-0.98) was associated with lower risk of affective behaviours, up to 500 and 120 min of MPA and VPA. Assuming causality, 5.14% and 18.88% of affective disorders could have been prevented if MPA ≥150 min/week and VPA ≥75 min/week were achieved, respectively, across the study population.

Conclusions: Device-measured MPA and VPA were associated with lower risk of affective disorders. The potential mental health benefits of MPA continue to accrue above the current World Health Organization recommendation.

Keywords: Accelerometery; Anxiety; Depression; Mental health; Physical activity.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Associations between device-measured PA and affective disorders. LPA, MPA, and VPA were mutually adjusted; all adjusted for age, sex, ethnicity, education, deprivation index, sleep duration, smoking, alcohol intake, and dietary intake of fruits/vegetables, red meat, processed meat, and oily fish. Vertical dashed lines represent current WHO recommendations. LPA light-intensity PA, MPA moderate-intensity PA, VPA vigorous-intensity PA
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Risk matrix on the joint association of MPA and VPA with affective disorders. Risk matrix is for visualisation purpose only and there were considerable overlaps in the 95% CIs as shown in Table 3. Estimated in Cox regression adjusted for age, sex, ethnicity, education, deprivation index, sleep duration, smoking, alcohol intake, dietary intake of fruits/vegetables, red meat, processed meat, and oily fish. Numbers presented are the associated reduction in hazard (%) compared with the least active group
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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