Exercise loosens depression's genetic grip — most for those most at risk

Genes load the dice for depression, but movement may change the throw. Qiliang He and colleagues at the University of Texas at San Antonio analyzed about 23,500 participants in the NIH All of Us program — each wearing a Fitbit for roughly a year and a half — and found that more active people had less severe depressive symptoms. Crucially, the benefit was strongest in those with the highest genetic risk, suggesting exercise matters most for the people most vulnerable. Published in Nature Mental Health; the study is observational, so it can't prove cause and effect — but it points toward exercise prescriptions tailored to a person's genetic profile.