Adequate sleep, exercise reduce mortality in individuals with depression

Getting enough sleep, engaging in high levels of physical activity, and cutting sedentary time appear to lower the risk of mortality in people with depression, according to a study.

Researchers used data from the UK Biobank and identified a total of 10,914 participants with pre-existing depression between 2013 and 2015. These participants were followed up through 2021.

Sleep duration, sedentary behaviour, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity were measured objectively using wrist-worn accelerometers for 7 consecutive days.

A total of 434 deaths were documented in the cohort over a median follow-up of 6.9 years. A U-shaped association was observed between sleep duration and mortality, with the lowest risk occurring at approximately 9 h/day.

Both moderate-and-vigorous and light physical activity showed an L-shaped association with mortality, such that the higher the levels of physical activity performed, the lower the risk of mortality, with the beneficial effect reaching a plateau after 50 min/day for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and 350 min/day for light physical activity.

Finally, sedentary time had a positive association with mortality, with the risk evidently increased above 8 h/day. Notably, replacing 1 h/day of sedentary time with light physical activity reduced the risk of mortality by 12 percent (hazard ratio [HR], 0.88, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.83–0.94). This risk reduction doubled when 1 h/day of sedentary time was replaced with moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (HR, 0.76, 95 percent CI, 0.61–0.94).