Mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety , are a growing global issue. Not only do they reduce overall wellbeing and life satisfaction they could also increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and increase mortality risk. Although talking therapies and medication can help in many instances, they do not help everyone.

For a recent study, researchers focused on unraveling the myriad factors that increase the risk of developing mental health conditions. Although it is not possible to alter some of these factors, such as genetics, it is possible to modify some lifestyle factors, including diet and   physical activity. Researchers investigated whether cardiorespiratory fitness might be an effective intervention. This is a measure of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems capacity to supply oxygen to the body during exercise.

To investigate, researchers followed studies that liked at how fitness interacts with mental health risk. They only included papers that used a prospective study design. This means that at the beginning of the studies, none of the participants had mental health conditions, and researchers observed them to see if any mental health issues arose. All experiments assessed  cardiorespiratory fitness and either depression   or anxiety. They found that low cardiorespiratory fitness and medium cardiorespiratory fitness are associated with a 47 percent and 23 percent greater risk of common mental health disorders, compared with high cardiorespiratory fitness.

Courtesy – TOI/BT