The influence of physical activity, social relationships, and diet intake on depression: a case-series study

This paper aims to investigate the three areas [diet, physical activity (PA), and social relationship] and their relationship with depressive disorders in the North African population.

This is an observational cross-sectional study of 654 participants residing in the urban commune of Fez (n=326) and the rural commune of Loulja (n=328) in the province of Taounate. Participants were categorized into two groups: G1 without a current depressive episode and G2 with a current depressive episode. Risk factors, including locality, gender, marital status, age, parental status, employment status, tobacco use, alcohol consumption, social habits, and dietary patterns, were assessed. A multinomial probit model in Stata software was used to identify factors associated with depression occurrence in the population.

A total of 94.52% of the participants who engaged in PA did not experience a depressive episode (P=0.001). Additionally, 45.39% of the participants in our series were on a processed diet and presented with a depressive disorder (P=0.0001), the social contact (time spent with friends >1.5 h) remained strongly associated with reduced depressive symptoms when comparing the two groups (P=0.001). The results showed that being rural, a smoker, an alcohol user, and having no spouse significantly increased depression in participants. The coefficient of age was negatively related to the probability of the occurrence of age-related depression; however, this factor was not significant in the model. Thus, having a spouse and/or children and spending time with friends on a healthy diet significantly decreased depression in our population.

The converging evidence suggests that physical exercise, a stable social relationship, a healthy diet, and the use of PA can alleviate depression symptoms, but limited understanding and few studies have attempted to characterize or identify the neural mechanisms of these effects.

Nonpharmaceutical interventions such as PA and dietary changes have proven to be effective treatments for depression, while maintaining positive social relationships can act as a protective factor, serving a prophylactic role in the prevention of depression.