April 13 (UPI) —<\/span> Adults who engage in recommended levels of physical activity are less likely to develop depression, an analysis published Wednesday found.<\/p>\n In the review of data from 15 studies that collectively enrolled nearly 20,000 participants age 18 years and older, those who met recommended physical activity levels were about 25% less likely to experience symptoms of depression, the data, published Wednesday by JAMA Psychiatry, showed.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n However, participating in more physical activity, beyond recommended levels, appeared to have “diminishing potential benefits,” the researchers said.<\/p>\n “Any exercise is good, even a few minutes walking per day might help,” study co-author James Woodcock told UPI in an email.\n<\/p>\n “The best exercise is going to be the one you actually do,” said Woodcock, a professor of transport and health modeling at the University of Cambridge in England.<\/p>\n Depression, or major depressive disorder, is a mood disorder that causes persistent feelings of sadness and loss of interest in daily activities, according to the Mayo Clinic.<\/p>\n About 21 million adults in the United States will experience at least one depressive episode in their lifetimes, the National Institute of Mental Health estimates.\n<\/p>\n Previous studies have found that exercise can help reduce the effects of depression and anxiety, which is a related disorder.\n<\/p>\n However, with many cutting back on exercise time during the pandemic, rates of anxiety and depression have risen national, research suggests.<\/p>\n For this analysis, researchers used data from 15 previously published studies that assessed depression risk among adults who engaged in varying levels of activities.\n<\/p>\n The threshold for physical activity was based on World Health Organization guidelines for adults, which recommend 8.8 marginal metabolic equivalent task hours per week.<\/p>\n Marginal metabolic equivalent task hours measure physical activity based on body mass-adjusted energy expenditure, with 0 being awake and at rest and 2.5 equating to walking, according to the Integrated Transport and Health Impact Model.<\/p>\n Engaging in the WHO’s recommended amount of physical activity reduced adults’ risk for depression by 25%, the data showed.<\/p>\n Adults who engaged in half of the WHO’s recommended amount of physical activity, 4.4 marginal metabolic equivalent task hours per week, lowered their risk for depression by 18%, the researchers said.<\/p>\n “We don’t know for sure how exercise works to reduce the risk of depression, but we know it helps,” Woodcock said.<\/p>\n “There might be more benefits from exercising in green space compared with in the gym, but we don’t know that for sure,” he said.\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Engaging in recommended amounts of physical activity appears to reduce the risk for depression in adults, according to a new study. File photo by Image Point Fr\/\/Shutterstock April 13 (UPI) — Adults who engage in recommended levels of physical activity are less likely to develop depression, an analysis published Wednesday found. In the review of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1055231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[465,1371,2682,176,469,6175,425,28],"class_list":["post-1055230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-activity","tag-adults","tag-depression","tag-finds","tag-physical","tag-reduces","tag-risk","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1055230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1055230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1055230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1055230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Physical](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Physical-activity-reduces-depression-risk-in-adults-study-finds.jpg\" "\\"Physical")
\n<\/div>\nEngaging in recommended amounts of physical activity appears to reduce the risk for depression in adults, according to a new study. File photo by Image Point Fr\/\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n