Device-measured physical activity and incident affective disorders

Area of Science:

• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Mental Health Research

Background:

• Previous research on physical activity (PA) and mental health primarily relied on self-reported data.
• This study addresses this limitation by utilizing objective, device-measured PA data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between device-measured physical activity (PA) and the incidence of affective disorders.
• To quantify the potential public health impact of achieving specific PA intensities.

Main Methods:

• Prospective cohort study of 37,327 UK Biobank participants without prior affective disorder diagnoses.
• Objective PA measurement using wrist-worn accelerometers (total, light, moderate, vigorous).
• Cox proportional hazard models with penalized splines, adjusted for confounders, to analyze PA-affective disorder associations.

Main Results:

• Over 6.8 years median follow-up, 1262 individuals developed affective disorders.
• Replacing sedentary time with moderate PA (MPA) or vigorous PA (VPA) was linked to reduced affective disorder risk.
• Significant risk reduction observed up to 500 min/week for MPA and 120 min/week for VPA.

Conclusions:

• Device-measured moderate and vigorous physical activity are associated with a lower risk of affective disorders.
• Mental health benefits of MPA continue to increase beyond current WHO recommendations.
• Substantial population-level prevention of affective disorders is possible through achieving recommended MPA and VPA levels.