field of research emerging there on , for example , social media and the constant use of online technologies - how that might interact with cognition , and brain development , and mental health is another interest of mine . Obviously , we don ' t have the long-term research that we do for nutrients or exercise , because exposure to these phenomena hasn ’ t been long enough to enable sufficient studies into their long-term effects . And then also just the length of time that young people have been exposed to these , we ' ve not seen the long-term effects of things like that either in cohort studies or whatever . We know for instance , exercise reduces the risk of developing depression over this life cost . We haven ' t actually had a chance to conduct studies that look at how if internet exposure or social media increases or reduces the risk of depression of the life cost . There ' s not the data from the life cost studies yet . So , it ' ll be interesting to see how that field develops . Already though , there is quite strong evidence that high amounts of screen time , especially in the context of sedentary behaviour is detrimental for physical health and mental health in young people .
So , you ' ve seen guidelines from like the World Health Organisation trying to be swayed against that and trying to reduce the amount of sedentary screen time that young people are engaging in . I mean , in some ways it ' s common sense , people say , " Oh , well , obviously ." But then in other ways , I ' d say that , well , everyone is saying it ' s obvious , but what is anybody actually doing about it in health policy or in health interventions , public health interventions ? Everybody is saying it ' s so obvious that that ' s not good for people . Why is there literally almost zero efforts to do anything other than perpetuate the amount of screen time in young people ?
A lot of young people with mental illness , even the groups that I work with , report about how social media has had a detrimental effect on their mental health . And that might only apply to the specific individuals , but still for sure , there ' s a lot of examples of where people have been very seriously affected by the consequences of things that have happened entirely online , but then they ' ve had a really massive impact on their day-to-day mental health and well-being and functioning as well . But then equally , so far so good , we ' ve seen a lot of interventions now making use of social media to bring people together .
Adrian : Now , one thing I wanted to bring up . I recall reading some of your work looking at the relationship between grip strength and mental health , showing that a better grip strength is associated with the reduced risk of suicide , and improved cognition , and greater hippocampal volume . What ' s going on there ?
Joseph : We ' ve done a whole broad range of research , and Miles Imoji clinched my research on the subject , looking at people with higher levels of maximal grip strength , which is literally just measured using like a hand-grip dynamometer . Most people will have seen these , but they can imagine what it ' s like . And it ' s just a thing that you squeeze really hard and it just gives you an output in kilos of how strong your grip is .
And then when we look at that in the epidemiological studies , we give each person a score , which accounts for other things that make a big difference to grip strength like your age , and your body size , and your gender or sex , things that relate to it . And then like the people ' s average pound for pound scores , so to speak , really relate to a whole range of mental health outcomes , of physical health outcomes and then also even of brain and cognition outcomes . fitness relates to a range of different physical and mental health outcomes . And we know that by increasing our cardiorespiratory fitness , we can increase our mental health . Obviously , if we increase our physical health , we can increase our brain health , there ' s a whole body of research looking at all this and even the World Health Organisation recommends that improving cardiorespiratory fitness will improve our mental health and brain health in young people and older people . So , that ' s widely accepted .
The grip itself is just a marker of someone ' s overall muscular strength . So , we ' ve got to think of it in those terms . For a test of overall muscular strength , you might think , " Oh , well , bench press would be a better test of someone ' s muscular strength ." Not necessarily because then the people who do best , just practise more bench press . You know what I mean ? So , the other tests can be too influenced by what you ' ve been doing at the gym . Even though the grip strength test seems like such a small test , it ' s a good one because it ' s not too influenced by what people have been practising , after all everyone is used to gripping something quite hard .
And you get an idea from that . So , really , the evidence is signalling that , just as much as improving our cardiorespiratory fitness might be good for our mental health and physical health , equally , improving people ' s muscular fitness and muscular strength might be really good for mental health and physical health .
Dr Joseph Firth PhD , BSc ( Hibs ) PSYC . Adjunct Research Fellow , Healthy Minds , NICM Health Research Institute . became a NICM Health Research Institute Adjunct in 2020 upon returning to the United Kingdom . Prior to this appointment , Dr Firth had been a Research Fellow at the Institute since 2017 , focused in mental health and clinical research . He was a recipient of the NICM HRI Blackmores Institute Fellowship . Dr Firth is currently a Presidential Fellow ( Research ) at The University of Manchester in the United Kingdom . He has published extensively in leading medical journals including The Lancet Psychiatry , World Psychiatry , NeuroImage , JAMA Psychiatry , Schizophrenia Bulletin , and The American Journal of Psychiatry , on the clinical use of exercise and nutritional interventions for improving both physical and mental health outcomes in people with psychiatric conditions . His ongoing research focuses on developing and evaluating pragmatic and feasible programs aimed at helping young people with mental health problems to engage in regular exercise , and to adopt healthy lifestyles .
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