Confiding in others may protect against depression

ISLAMABAD, February 13 (online): A study suggests confiding in others is one of the best ways to stave off depression, while daytime napping and spending lots of time watching television appear to increase the risk of developing the condition.

Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) say depression is a leading cause of disability, and estimate more than 264 million people suffer from the condition.

Therefore, a major priority is to identify environmental and lifestyle factors that people can change to reduce their risk of developing the condition.

Now, researchers have analyzed data on more than 100,000 participants in the UK Biobank, a research program that has been monitoring the health and wellbeing of half a million volunteers in the United Kingdom since 2006.

Choi and her colleagues focused on 106 modifiable factors that might affect people’s risk of depression. These fell into three categories:
• Lifestyle, including exercise,sleep patterns, media use, and diet.
• Social, including support networks and social engagement.

• Environmental, including pollution and access to green spaces.
The researchers first singled out participants who were already at risk of depression due to their genetics or trauma in their childhood.

They then carried out an “exposure-wide association scan” of the database to identify which of the 106 modifiable factors were associated with the development of depression during the follow-up period.