Joint and dose‐dependent associations between aerobic and muscle‐strengthening activity with depression: A cross‐sectional study of 1.48 million adults between 2011 and 2017

Abstract

Background: Research has shown that regular physical activity is key for the prevention and/or treatment of depression. However, epidemiological studies describing the associations between different physical activity modes (i.e., aerobic vs. muscle-strengthening exercise) with depression are limited.

Muscle-strengthening Exercise Epidemiology: a New Frontier in Chronic Disease Prevention

“…In addition to these independent health benefits, our recent epidemiological studies suggest that, compared to engaging in either the muscle-strengthening exercise guideline (≥ 2 sessions/week) or the aerobic MVPA guideline alone (≥ 150 min/week), the combination of both (as is prescribed in the current guideline) may be most beneficial for the prevention and/or management of multiple prevalent chronic health conditions [14,49,[53][54][55][56][57][58]. Our cross-sectional studies, amongst large samples (range:~10,000 to~1.7 million adults) across several countries (e.g.…”

“…the USA, Germany and South Korea) have shown that compared to meeting the aerobic MVPA or muscle-strengthening exercise guideline alone, meeting both guidelines was associated with several important indicators of health. These include a reduced prevalence of cardiometabolic (hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease) and general health conditions (arthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma) [54,58]; depression/depressive symptom severity [53,56,57]; obesity [49]; and prevalence of hyperglycaemia and dyslipidaemia [55]. Given the cross-sectional nature of these data, we urge caution in drawing strong causal inferences.…”

Associations of muscle-strengthening and aerobic exercise with self-reported components of sleep health among a nationally representative sample of 47,564 US adults

“…16 Further, both aerobic MVPA and MSE are associated with improved depression and anxiety symptoms, [41][42][43] which are also associated with sleep, and some evidence exists of added mental health benefits to these outcomes when engaging in both aerobic MVPA and MSE. 17,19,44 To further establish how combined MVPA-MSE is related to sleep health, it is recommend that future experimental studies are encouraged to compare the effects of discrete grouping of physical activity modes (ie, control vs aerobic MVPA vs MSE vs combined aerobic MVPA-MSE) on components of sleep health, and also examine cardiometabolic and mental health as potential mediators of change.…”

“…20 Body mass index (BMI) was calculated from self-reported height (meters) and weight (kilograms) using the formula: BMI = kg/m 2 . In addition, since poor mental health can negatively impact on both physical activity 17,30 and sleep, 32 we also adjusted for a proxy assessment of depression, classified as previous clinical diagnosis for depression. Last, we adjusted for the selfreported presence ("yes," "no" to each comorbidity) of the following comorbidities: arthritis/rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, asthma, diabetes, high cholesterol, myocardial infarction, coronary heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, kidney disease, and cancer (nonskin).…”

“…10 Moreover, while current evidence suggests that MSE may benefit some components of sleep health, it remains unclear if engaging in MSE in addition to MVPA confers additional benefits to overall sleep health. 9 Engaging in both aerobic MVPA and MSE has been shown to provide additional health benefits, including a reduced risk of allcause and cancer mortality, [11][12][13] improved cardiometabolic, 14,15 and mental health, [16][17][18][19] compared to only engaging in one physical activity modality. However, to our knowledge, the independent and/or mutual associations between aerobic MVPA and MSE with components of sleep health at the population-level have not been previously examined.…”