Depression can be prevented through a healthy lifestyle, find out why

Source: Cambridge University

Summary: Depression can be reduced. as per new research, a healthy lifestyle involves moderate alcohol consumption, a proper diet, regular exercise, proper sleep, and frequent social connections, while avoiding smoking and sedentary behavior.

Depression affects approximately one in every 20 adults and has a significant negative impact on public health globally. It is difficult to pinpoint the precise biological and environmental factors that contribute to the development of depression.

The UK Biobank, a biological database and research resource with anonymized genetic, lifestyle, and health information on its users, was used by the researchers to gain a better understanding of the connection between these characteristics and depression.

The team was able to pinpoint seven healthy lifestyle factors associated with a lower risk of depression by analyzing data from nearly 290,000 individuals, 13,000 of whom had depression, over the course of a nine-year period. They included:

• moderate alcohol consumption • healthy diet • regular physical activity • healthy sleep • never smoking • low-to-moderate sedentary behaviour • frequent social connection.

Sleeping well—between seven and nine hours every night—made the biggest difference of all these variables, lowering the risk of depression, including single depressive episodes and treatment-resistant depression, by 22%.

The best defense against recurrent depressive disorder was regular social contact, which generally reduced the risk of depression by 18%.

Low to moderate sedentary behavior reduced risk of depression by 13%, healthy diet by 6%, regular exercise by 14%, never smoking by 20%, and moderate alcohol consumption by 11%.

An individual was placed in one of three groups—unfavorable, intermediate, or favorable—based on how many healthy lifestyle factors they followed. When compared to people who lead unfavorable lifestyles, people in the intermediate group were about 41% less likely to experience depression, while people who lead a favourable lifestyle were 57% less likely.

The team then performed a genetic risk assessment on each participant by looking at their DNA. The number of genetic variations a person possessed that are known to be associated with a higher risk of depression was the basis for this score. When compared to those with the highest genetic risk scores, those with the lowest scores had a 25% lower risk of developing depression, which is a much smaller effect than lifestyle.

The group also discovered that leading a healthy lifestyle can lower the risk of depression in people with high, medium, and low genetic risk for depression. This study emphasizes the value of leading a healthy lifestyle regardless of a person’s genetic risk for depression.

Professor Barbara Sahakian, from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, said: “Although our DNA—the genetic hand we’ve been dealt—can increase our risk of depression, we’ve shown that a healthy lifestyle is potentially more important. “Some of these lifestyle factors are things we have a degree of control over, so trying to find ways to improve them—making sure we have a good night’s sleep and getting out to see friends, for example—could make a real difference to people’s lives.”

First, they looked at MRI brain scans from slightly less than 33,000 participants and discovered several areas of the brain where a larger volume—more neurons and connections—was associated with a healthy lifestyle. These included the thalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, and pallidum.

The team then looked for markers in the blood that suggest immune system or metabolism (how our bodies process food and create energy) issues. The body produces the molecule Creactive protein in response to stress, and triglycerides, one of the main types of fat the body uses to store energy for later, were among the markers that were discovered to be linked to lifestyle.

Several earlier studies have provided evidence for these connections. For instance, stress in life can impair our capacity to control blood sugar, which can deteriorate immune function and hasten the aging process of cells and molecules in the body.

The body’s capacity to react to stress can be harmed by insufficient exercise and sleep. There is evidence that loneliness and a lack of social support raise immune-deficiency markers and increase the risk of infection.

The research team discovered that the most significant relationship between lifestyle and immune and metabolic processes existed.

To put it another way, leading a poorer lifestyle has an effect on our immune system and metabolism, which raises our risk of developing depression.