The relationship between physical activity and depressive symptoms in males: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Plain-language summary

This review asked whether the amount of activity men already do tracks with depressive symptoms. It pooled 5 observational studies covering 35,811 men. Each study had labeled men as inactive, low, moderate or high activity. The review kept those labels and compared each active band with inactive men. Men in the moderate band had about a third lower odds of depressive symptoms than inactive men. That drop was large enough to count as a real finding in the pooled data. Men in the low band and men in the high band did not show a significant change. The benefit sat in the middle. More activity than moderate did not show a further drop. The review did not impose one shared cutoff. One included study, which the review cites as an example, counted moderate as at least 500 MET-minutes a week, about 150 minutes of moderate activity such as walking. The other studies used their own bands. The studies were observational, so they show what went together rather than what caused what. The authors also note that the five studies differed a lot from each other.

Key findings

• Moderate activity went with roughly a third lower odds of depressive symptoms in men, compared with inactive men.
• Low activity and high activity did not show a significant change.
• The review pooled 35,811 men across 5 studies.