Physical Activity and Risk of Depression: Does the Type, Frequency and Number of Activities Matter? UK Biobank Prospective Cohort Study.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the risk of incident depression according to volume, type, frequency, and duration of physical activity (PA) in adults from the UK Biobank cohort. METHODS: We included 160,358 individuals (55.1% women), aged 38-70 years, free of depression and other mental health disorders, who underwent baseline assessment between Mar-2006 and Oct-2010. Participants reported their participation in walking, light do-it-yourself (DIY), heavy DIY, strenuous sports, and other exercises. Depression onset was extracted from primary care and hospital admission records (censored: 2016 to 2021). RESULTS: During a median follow-up of 10.01 years, 5,363 participants developed depression. The risk of depression onset was lower in participants who participated in walking (hazard ratio [95% confidence interval]=0.84 [0.75, 0.93]), light DIY (0.86 [0.76, 0.96]), heavy DIY (0.76 [0.67, 0.87]), sports (0.62 [0.49, 0.78]), and other exercises (0.78 [0.69, 0.88]). Those performing one, two, three, four and five types of PA had a 15%, 20%, 26%, 36% and 54% lower risk of incident depression, respectively. Combining walking, DIY and structured PA resulted in a 29% reduced risk of depression. Overall, moderate PA volume (150-300 min/week), frequency (1-3 times/week), and session duration (60-120 min) were associated with the largest reductions in the risk of developing depression. CONCLUSION: Engaging in a variety of light and moderate-vigorous PA, over relatively low frequency or session duration, was associated with substantial reductions in the risk of depression. Promoting the incorporation of PA into daily routines might be a useful population-level strategy for preventing depression.