Exercise boosts release of ‘happy hormones,’ doctor says
Getting a certain number of daily steps has long been known to boost overall health — and now a new study has pinpointed how many you need to keep depression at bay.
A research team led by Bruno Bizzozero-Peroni, PhD, from Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha in Cuenca, Spain, analyzed 33 studies involving 96,173 adults.
In comparing the adults’ daily step counts and rates of depression, they found that people with higher daily step counts tended to have fewer depressive symptoms, according to the study findings, which were published in JAMA Network Open last week.
Getting 5,000 or more steps was linked to reduced depressive symptoms, while a step count of 7,000 or higher was associated with a lower risk of depression, the researchers found.
“Our results showed significant associations between higher numbers of daily steps and fewer depressive symptoms, as well as lower prevalence and risk of depression in the general adult population,” the authors wrote in the findings.