Aerobic exercise
min / week
Walking, jogging, or other aerobic sessions with a set intensity and a weekly minutes target. Trials assign that work, not daily steps or lifting.
The SMILE trials put people on a treadmill at 70 to 85 percent of heart-rate reserve. Yu used outdoor walking at the WHO minimums: 150 minutes of moderate work or 75 minutes of vigorous work. That prescribed aerobic work is the variable. Strength sessions, incidental step counts, and calling yourself an active person are different measures.
Also called aerobic training, walking program, cardio, supervised exercise.
Connected relationships
Randomized trial · Moderate
Aerobic exercise→Insulin resistance (HOMA-IR)
A rise in Aerobic exercise does not identify a change in Insulin resistance (HOMA-IR).
In 48 Glasgow adults, a 12-week pedometer program that added about 3,000 steps a day on five days a week did not change fasting insulin or glucose against a no-change walking control.
Randomized trial · Moderate
Aerobic exercise→Depression
Higher Aerobic exercise decreases Depression.
Prescribed walking or jogging reduced depression scores in randomized trials of people with major depression. The programs looked similar to sertraline. Against a placebo pill, SMILE II's HAM-D gap did not reach significance. A year later, assigned arm no longer predicted mood.
Observational · Low
Aerobic exercise→All-cause mortality
Higher Aerobic exercise decreases All-cause mortality.
Martinez-Gomez 2024 pooled 2,011,186 adults in four megacohorts and found that meeting recommended leisure-time activity tracked a 22 percent lower all-cause death rate (hazard ratio 0.78, 0.77 to 0.79). Nobody randomized walking against death.
Sources
- SR Gray et al. (2009). The effect of a 12 week walking intervention on markers of insulin resistance and systemic inflammation.
- JA Blumenthal et al. (1999). Effects of exercise training on older patients with major depression.
- M Babyak et al. (2001). Exercise treatment for major depression: maintenance of therapeutic benefit at 10 months.
- JA Blumenthal et al. (2007). Exercise and pharmacotherapy in the treatment of major depressive disorder.
- CJ Brush et al. (2022). A randomized trial of aerobic exercise for major depression: examining neural indicators of reward and cognitive control as predictors and treatment targets.
- DJ Yu et al. (2023). Comparison of moderate and vigorous walking exercise on reducing depression in middle-aged and older adults: A pilot randomized controlled trial.
- BM Hoffman et al. (2011). Exercise and pharmacotherapy in patients with major depression: one-year follow-up of the SMILE study.
- JA Blumenthal et al. (2021). The role of comorbid anxiety in exercise and depression trials: Secondary analysis of the SMILE-II randomized clinical trial.
- D Martinez-Gomez et al. (2024). Physical Activity and All-Cause Mortality by Age in 4 Multinational Megacohorts.
- U Ekelund et al. (2016). Does physical activity attenuate, or even eliminate, the detrimental association of sitting time with mortality? A harmonised meta-analysis of data from more than 1 million men and women.
- M Zhao et al. (2020). Recommended physical activity and all cause and cause specific mortality in US adults: prospective cohort study.
- DH Lee et al. (2022). Long-Term Leisure-Time Physical Activity Intensity and All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality: A Prospective Cohort of US Adults.
- Q Chang et al. (2024). Replacement of sedentary behavior with various physical activities and the risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality.
- H Feng et al. (2023). Associations of timing of physical activity with all-cause and cause-specific mortality in a prospective cohort study.
- E Stamatakis et al. (2020). Sitting Time, Physical Activity, and Risk of Mortality in Adults.