Studying the effects of a physical exercise programme on people with schizophrenia or autism spectrum disorder has been the main objective of the VITACTIVA’T project, promoted by the Institut Pere Mata University Hospital (HUIPM) and the Institut de Recerca Biomèdica Catalunya Sud (IRB CatSud), in collaboration with Rovira i Virgili University (URV). The project results were presented this Thursday.
The findings were shared during an event held at Reus Deportiu, the venue where the VITACTIVA’T sports sessions took place. The event brought together more than twenty participants, family members and mental health professionals.
Regarding the study results, the research team explained that regular physical exercise can help improve several health indicators in this population. Some of the main findings include:
A significant improvement in cognitive performance, with positive progress in areas such as attention, memory, learning, reasoning and processing speed.
A significant improvement in physical fitness, particularly in aerobic capacity and muscle strength in both the upper and lower limbs.
An increase in the number of mitochondrial DNA copies, a biomarker linked to the cells’ ability to produce energy.
A significant improvement in psychosocial functioning, meaning a greater ability to manage everyday activities and social interactions.
The research team also found that participants consume a high proportion of ultra-processed foods. “This habit is associated with poorer metabolic health indicators and less favourable psychosocial factors, which reinforces the need to work on reducing its consumption in this population,” explains Bernat Ballvé, nutritionist and researcher in the project.
Overall, these results confirm the role of physical exercise, together with nutrition and other lifestyle factors, as a complementary tool with the potential to improve the physical and mental health of people with severe mental disorders. This has encouraged the team to continue this line of research through the launch of VITACTIVA’T 2.
A new phase focused on physical exercise
During the event, the team also presented the new edition of the project, VITACTIVA’T 2, which will begin a new exercise programme next October. This new phase will focus exclusively on physical activity and will be aimed at people with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders.
Alba Valiente, psychiatrist and researcher involved in the project, explained that “the physical exercise programme will now last six months and will include three sessions per week, increasing both the duration of the intervention and the frequency of the sessions to meet the recommendations of the World Health Organization.”
Regarding the expected outcomes, Lourdes Martorell, principal investigator of the project, said: “The researchers involved believe that this more intensive exercise programme will provide new evidence of its role as a complementary therapy to standard treatment for people with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders. The study will examine cognition, quality of life and several biomarkers. The project will also seek to identify specific genetic, clinical and metabolic factors that can help provide personalised recommendations.”
The event marked the end of the first edition of the project in a positive atmosphere of reunion and enthusiasm. The research team expressed their gratitude for the trust and commitment shown by all participants, as well as by their families and the professionals who helped make this initiative possible.
The team also expressed optimism about VITACTIVA’T 2 and highlighted their commitment to continuing to generate scientific evidence that supports physical exercise as a complementary strategy to improve the health, well-being and quality of life of people living with severe mental disorders.
An international study finds epigenetic signals — chemical modifications that regulate gene activity without altering DNA, often influenced by environmental factors such as pollution or stress — associated with bipolar disorder, a mental illness characterised by extreme mood changes, alternating depression and euphoria, which could help to develop more accurate clinical prediction tools.
The study, published in the scientific journal EBioMedicine under the title DNA methylation signatures associated with bipolar disorder in peripheral blood improve prediction models, represents the largest meta-analysis on epigenetics in bipolar disorder carried out so far at an international level. The participation of researchers linked to the Hospital Universitari Institut Pere Mata (HUIPM) and the Institut de Recerca Biomèdica Catalunya Sud (IRB CatSud, formerly IISPV) has been especially relevant, as they have provided their own sample of participants, one of the 12 that have contributed to the study. The research has also included the participation of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) and the team from the Consorci Sanitari del Maresme — both integrated into the national network Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM) — and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB).
The research analysed a sample of 3,476 people in total — of whom 1,729 had the disorder and 1,747 were healthy — aged between 16 and 53 years, with 56% women, coming from 12 international samples from different countries. The objective was to identify epigenetic changes associated with bipolar disorder.
Among the most important results, the research team identified 47 regions with epigenetic modification associated with the diagnosis of bipolar disorder and, among these, several are genetic regions involved in processes related to neurotransmission, immune response and cell regulation. In addition, the study also shows that polymethylation scores, which are epigenetic indicators that integrate multiple chemical marks in DNA that can activate or deactivate genes, combined with current genetic models, can improve the predictive ability for bipolar disorder, especially in bipolar disorder type I.
“These results reinforce the idea that epigenetic factors, which are more influenced by environmental factors, can provide additional information to genetics (which is more stable) and contribute, in the future, to the development of useful biological indicators for diagnosis, as well as for clinical decision-making in mental health,” says Elisabet Vilella, one of the researchers involved in the study.
The study has also involved research centres and universities from Europe, North America and Australia, within a large international collaboration under the framework of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium Bipolar Disorder Working Group.
The publication represents a new recognition of research driven from the region in the field of psychiatry and mental health, and consolidates the position of the participating centres as references in translational research and biomedical innovation.
Bibliographic reference
Tesfaye, M., Stavrum, A. K., Höffler, K. D., O’Connell, K. S., David, F. S., Garrett, M. E., Hesam-Shariati, S., Overs, B. J., Pisanu, C., Spano, L., Watkeys, O. J., Weihs, A., Ardau, R., Ashley-Koch, A. E., Athanasiu, L., Beckham, J. C., Bourassa, K. J., Chillotti, C., Djurovic, S., Drange, O. K., … Le Hellard, S. (2026). DNA methylation signatures associated with bipolar disorder in peripheral blood improve prediction models. EBioMedicine, 128, 106284. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2026.106284