New research suggests that high or mild levels of physical activity could reduce one's risk of developing mental health problems.

Researchers from the Polytechnic University of Madrid and European University found that the level of exercise performed in leisure time is inversely related to vulnerability to mental disorders. These findings could be taken into account when developing policies and strategies aiming to improve population health with more efficient use of health resources.

For the study, researchers collected and analyzed data from 15 and 74 years olds living in the Community of Madrid.

They found that 15 percent of the population sampled suffered some type of mental disorder and the 19.8 percent were not enough active according to current recommendations.

After further analysis, researchers determined that levels of mental health of population of Madrid vary according to their level of exercise in leisure time and the physical activity total (amount of physical activity at work or usual occupation, commuting and leisure time). Thus, people that said to perform high or mild levels of total physical exercise showed better level of mental health. Considering only the physical activity performed in leisure time, the risk of suffering mental health pathologies among the "sufficiently active" population (that means, those who perform high o mild levels of exercise) was reduced up to 56 or 54 percent compared to the "insufficiently active" population, depending of the level of physical activity, mild or high respectively.

Although this association between physical activity and mental health has been shown in previous studies, there still exist gaps in knowledge related to the mechanisms that regulate it. This makes necessary to more research on this matter.

The findings are detailed in the journal Pediatric Exercise Science.