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A third of people at risk of mental health issue could avoid it with regular workouts, study shows
Can exercise stop one in three cases of depression? A third of people at risk of mental health issue could avoid it with regular workouts, study shows
- Research suggests getting moving can reduce risk of depression and anxiety
- 75 minutes a week of vigorous exercise could reduce risk by almost 19 per cent
- Figures come as one in five adults in the UK suffer from depression or anxiety
A third of people at risk of depression and anxiety could prevent it by getting enough exercise, a study suggests.
Exercise is a well-known treatment for those with depression, with doctors even prescribing it.
But moving more could prevent people becoming depressed and anxious in the first place, a study of more than 37,000 people suggests.
If everyone managed 75 minutes a week of vigorous exercise – which makes you breathe hard and includes running and swimming – it could prevent almost 19 per cent of cases of depression and anxiety, researchers concluded.
Research suggests regular exercise could reduce diagnoses of depression and anxiety
And if we all did between two-and-a-half hours and five hours a week of moderate activity – which makes you breathe faster and includes brisk walking, cycling and dancing – another 13 per cent of depression and anxiety diagnoses might never happen.
These findings suggest almost a third of cases of depression and anxiety, which affect one in five adults in the UK, might be preventable through exercise.
Dr Carlos Celis-Morales, senior author of the study from the University of Glasgow, said: ‘This is a very strong public health message, as exercise is free, and everyone can increase how much they do in a week.’
The study, in the journal BMC Medicine, looked at people aged 37 to 73 who had not anxiety. They were given fitness trackers to monitor physical activity.
When they were followed up, for almost seven years on average, around 3 per cent had developed depression or anxiety.
Based on the results, researchers calculated that sedentary people who switched to 75 to 150 minutes a week of vigorous activity would be 29 per cent less likely to develop depression or anxiety.
Doing 150 to 300 minutes a week of moderate physical activity would reduce the risk of becoming anxious or depressed by 47 per cent.
More research is needed, as the study authors do not yet understand if it is the exercise itself making the difference.
Although physical activity does flood the brain with reward chemicals, the benefits may be more about exercising with other people and the boost we get from socialising.
Ease up at the gym: Intense workouts can impact your memory performance
HANOVER, N.H. — Studies continue to conclude that exercise is good for the body, brain, and well-being in a general sense. However, researchers from Dartmouth College are showing the true complexity of the relationship between exercise, memory, and mental health. Their study finds the impact of exercise is much more nuanced; differences in exercise intensity over a long period appear to result in different memory and mental health outcomes.
“Mental health and memory are central to nearly everything we do in our everyday lives,” lead study author Jeremy Manning, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouth, says in a media release. “Our study is trying to build a foundation for understanding how different intensities of physical exercise affect different aspects of mental and cognitive health.”
No two workouts are exactly the same; some people work out at a particularly intense pace, while others take a low-key, less intense approach. Study authors gathered a group of 113 Fitbit users and asked each person to perform series of memory tests, answer some questions about their mental health, and share their fitness data from the prior year. Researchers expected more active participants to have a stronger memory performance and display better mental health, but the results weren’t that simple.
Taking it easy may be better for your brain
Participants who usually exercised at a low intensity actually performed better at some memory tasks in comparison to more intense exercisers. Those who were working out more intensely also reported higher stress levels, while lower-intensity exercisers showed lower rates of anxiety and depression.
Prior research projects focusing on exercise and memory have predominantly only lasted for several days or weeks. The team at Dartmouth wanted to analyze the effects over a much larger timeframe. Collected data included daily step counts, average heart rates, time spent exercising in different “heart rate zones” defined by FitBit (rest, out-of-range, fat burn, cardio, or peak), as well as additional information collected over a full calendar year.
The team used a total of four specific memory tasks for this project, all designed to gauge a different vital aspect of memory over varying timescales. A pair of the tasks focused on testing “episodic” memory, or the memory we use to recall events from our past. Another task centered on testing “spatial” memory, or the type of memory people use to remember locations on a map. The final task tested “associative” memory, or the ability to remember connections between concepts or other memories.
Results show exercisers who were more active over the prior year tended to do better on the memory tasks in general, but specific areas that could use improvement varied depending on the person’s typical exercise routine.
Those exercising at moderate intensities usually performed better on the episodic memory tasks, while participants who typically exercised at high intensities scored higher on the spatial memory tasks. Meanwhile, people who didn’t exercise very often in general usually performed worse on the spatial memory tasks.
Mental health disorders impact memory
Notably, the team also found connections between participants’ mental health and memory scores. Those who reported dealing with either depression or anxiety usually performed better on the spatial and associative memory tasks. However, participants with self-reported bipolar disorder scored higher on episodic memory tasks. People under stress typically scored worse on associative memory tasks.
“When it comes to physical activity, memory, and mental health, there’s a really complicated dynamic at play that cannot be summarized in single sentences like ‘walking improves your memory’ or ‘stress hurts your memory,’” Prof. Manning explains. “Instead, specific forms of physical activity and specific aspects of mental health seem to affect each aspect of memory differently.”
More work is necessary, but study authors are optimistic that their research will one day lead to exciting future applications.
“For example,” Prof. Manning concludes, “to help students prepare for an exam or reduce their depression symptoms, specific exercise regimens could be designed to help improve their cognitive performance and mental health.”
The study is published in Scientific Reports.
Mac Jones: Disciplined diet, workouts have led to significant strides this offseason
One of the most common observations out of the Patriots’ offseason program is that quarterback Mac Jones is in noticeably better shape than he was as a rookie. Jones says that’s the result of plain old hard work.
Jones told Phil Perry of NBCSportsBoston.com that he is working hard and eating better, and the results speak for themselves.
“I made significant strides,” he said. “Fixing my body, feeling comfortable, feeling healthier and better. At the end of the day, you’re still a human and you want to eat what you want to eat, but you have to be disciplined.”
The Patriots were very pleased with Jones’ performance as a rookie in 2021, although there was some talk that he was fading down the stretch, and perhaps being in better shape in 2022 will allow Jones to play his best football when it matters most.
A Mouse Study Just Revealed a New Molecular Link Between Hunger And Exercise
It’s well established that regular exercise benefits our bodies, not least in protecting against obesity, but scientists are continuing to look more closely at why this happens on a molecular level.
In a new study, scientists put mice on intense treadmill workouts and analyzed how the chemicals in the cells of the animals then began to change over time. They found the appearance of a metabolite called Lac-Phe (N-lactoyl-phenylalanine), synthesized from lactate and phenylalanine.
Phenylalanine is an amino acid that combines to make proteins, and you might be familiar with lactate: It is produced by the body after strenuous exercise and causes the post-workout burning sensation that gets felt in the muscles.
The study authors think they’ve found an important biological pathway opened up by exercise, which then has an impact on the rest of the body – specifically in the level of appetite and the amount of food taken in.
Further tests confirmed these results. Researchers gave high doses of Lac-Phe to mice on a high-fat diet, resulting in the mice eating about half as much over the next 12 hours compared to a group of control mice. Meanwhile, the movement and energy expenditure of the animals remained unchanged.
Over a period of 10 days, the Lac-Phe doses led to a drop in food intake, a resulting drop in body weight, and improved glucose tolerance in the mice. Those are positive results when thinking about ways to combat obesity and obesity-related disease.
There were some caveats, though. The differences in appetite suppression caused by Lac-Phe were only noticeable after exercise and in mice on a high-fat diet. The same effects weren’t seen in more sedentary mice fed normally.
The scientists also looked at the effects of exercise in humans and racehorses, finding elevated levels of Lac-Phe here, too, most notably after sprinting in people. However, the knock-on effects weren’t looked into, and more research will be needed to see if these results translate fully into human beings.
By shedding more light on the molecular responses to physical activity, the findings of the study will help in a number of areas of research, including treatments.
There’s likely a lot more to discover. The researchers note that as Lac-Phe is produced in multiple cell types in mice, it’s likely that it’s not just the muscles in the body that know when we’re working out.
“Future work uncovering the downstream molecular and cellular mediators of Lac-Phe action in the brain may provide new therapeutic opportunities to capture the cardiometabolic benefits of physical activity for human health,” write the researchers.
The research has been published in Nature.
Use the ‘talk test’ to make workouts more or less intense
The talk test is a way to measure relative intensity of an activity, and it relies on understanding how physical activity affects heart rate and breathing, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Generally, being able to talk but not sing during an activity would make it moderate intensity, the CDC says. Your voice might be labored, said physical therapist Nicholas Rolnick, but you can carry on a conversation. “It’s (your) heart rate elevated, but not interfering with a workout,” said Rolnick, who’s based in New York City.
It’s an easy method of scaling intensity without any complicated fitness technology or software, Rolnick said. The talk test can help you “make sure that you’re hitting the intensity of exercise that you want to hit in order to meet physical activity-recommended guidelines.”
This activity could look like walking briskly, or 3 miles per hour or faster, but not speed-walking. Water aerobics, biking slower than 10 miles per hour on flat or level ground, tennis and ballroom dancing might also fit into this intensity level, according to the CDC.
During the most intense workout, carrying on a conversation would be impossible, Rolnick said. You wouldn’t be able to say more than a few words without having to pause for a breath, the CDC says.
Exercises done to that intensity can include running, swimming laps, singles tennis, aerobic dancing, bicycling faster than 10 miles per hour or on inclines, jumping rope or hiking uphill or while carrying a heavy load.
The World Health Organization has recommended that adults get at least 150 minutes — 2 1/2 hours — of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity weekly. That can reduce the risk for early death, heart disease, hypertension, cancer and Type 2 diabetes, according to WHO.
Pregnant people should do at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic and strengthening exercises per week, the WHO recommendations say. And children under 18 need at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise (mostly aerobic activities) daily.
Kadarius Toney arrives at Giants workouts with trade reports growing
Kadarius Toney has arrived.
The Post’s Ryan Dunleavy confirmed the second-year wideout made his first appearance at the Giants’ voluntary workouts on Monday, a weekend after trade reports began circulating.
Toney has been frustrating the Giants’ new regime — GM Joe Schoen and coach Brian Daboll — by being absent from the previous sessions.
Toney had an injury-plagued rookie season in which there were questions about his attitude. The former Florida star was taken by the Giants with the No. 20 pick in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft.
Toney, 23, had 39 catches for 420 yards last season.
Report: Kyler Murray will not attend Cardinals voluntary workouts
As the Cardinals get their offseason program underway, there will be a few significant absences — highlighted by one quarterback.
Per Ian Rapoport of NFL Media, Kyler Murray will not attend Arizona’s voluntary workouts and will instead train on his own. Rapoport adds that’s the plan for several of the team’s veterans, who have communicated the plan with the Cardinals for weeks.
As the workouts are voluntary, there’s no obligation for Murray to attend them. But the quarterback is still seeking a second contract from Arizona. NFL Media’s Tom Pelissero reported last week that the Cardinals had not made a contract offer to Murray and his representation. Pelissero added that Murray’s agent Eric Burkhardt informed Arizona weeks ago that he was pulling his opening proposal off the table.
To this point, no trade request has been reported. Though either way, the Cardinals have reportedly been insisting that Murray will not be traded.
Murray is set to make $5.5 million in 2022 and multiple reports have indicated that it is highly unlikely he’ll play for the Cardinals at that number in the coming season.
Murray threw for 3,787 yards with 24 touchdowns and 10 interceptions in 14 regular-season games last year. But he had a rocky playoff debut, completing 19-of-34 passes for 137 yards with a pair of interceptions in the Cardinals’ loss to the Rams.
DeVante Parker joins Mac Jones-led workouts in Florida
Mac Jones has a new receiver, and it didn’t take long for the Patriots quarterback to begin getting to know DeVante Parker.
Parker’s trade from Miami to New England became official Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Parker showed up on a social media video shared by Patriots receiver Kendrick Bourne. Jones is working with teammates in Tampa and Parker arrived Tuesday night.
He joined Jones, Bourne, running back J.J. Taylor and receivers Jakobi Meyers and Nelson Agholor in the workouts.
“I’m very excited,” Parker said in a video posted by the team Wednesday, announcing Parker’s arrival. “I’m just blessed that they gave me a chance and gave me an opportunity just to come out and help out the team in whatever way I can. I appreciate the fans for their support, and I’m just looking forward to it. I’m ready to get it going.”
N’Keal Harry was not present at the Jones-led workouts in Tampa with Parker’s arrival likely signaling the former first-round pick’s departure from New England.