Scattered
03-02-07, 12:15 PM
A 10 month study compared 156 adult volunteers with Major Depressive Disorder who had been assigned randomly to three different groups: exercise only, Zoloft only, combination exercise/Zoloft.
At four months they found the results were similar in terms of improvement betwen all three groups. Six months after the four month intervention when patients were on their own they found that only 30% of exericse only patients had relapsed compared to over 50% of medication only, and combination groups.
Over all they determined that at 10 months almost 90% of exercise group was recovered, compared to about 60% for the other two groups. "Participants in the exercise group were more likely than those in the medication group to be partially or fully recovered at the 6-month follow-up visit. In contrast, patients receiving combination therapy were no more likely to be categorized as partially or fully recovered than were patients in the medication group. In addition, only 8% of remitted patients in the exercise group had relapsed, compared to 38% in the medication group and 31% in the combination group."
I got this information in a class I'm taking from John Ratey, MD (co-author of Driven to Distraction and Shadow Syndromes and A User's Guide to the Brain). It was from an article in Psychosomatic Medicine 62:633-638 (2000) called Exercise Treatment for Major Depression: Maintenancy of Therapeutic Benefit at 10 months by Babyak, M, et. al.
Another article published in The Journal of Sports Medicine 35:114-117 (2001) called Benefits from aerobic exercise in patients with major depression: A pilot study by Dimeo, F., et. al looked at 12 patients (10 of whom had refractory depression -- that means they had already been treated with two different SSRI medication without any improvement).
This group did aerobic exercise on a treadmill for 30 minutes for 10 days. At the end of this time they found that 6 patients experienced significant improvement, 2 slight improvement, and 4 unchanged. Half of the refractory depression group had experienced significant improvement!
Their conclusion was that "Aerobic exercixse can produce substantial improvement in mood in patients with major depressive disorders in a short time."
The study also noted that since antidepressive medications have a two to four week latency period before they begin to take therapeutic effect, exercise offers "clinical benefit not obtainable with currently available pharmacological treatments. Furthermore, a substantial percentage of patients show no improvement despite an optimal dosage of antidepressants. For these patients, aerobic training could offer a safe therapeutic option."
"Meta-analysis has shown that even a single exercise bout can improve mood."
I'll be sharing more about this in the exercise section under the topic "Harnessing the Psychiatric Benefits of Exercise".
Take care!
Scattered
At four months they found the results were similar in terms of improvement betwen all three groups. Six months after the four month intervention when patients were on their own they found that only 30% of exericse only patients had relapsed compared to over 50% of medication only, and combination groups.
Over all they determined that at 10 months almost 90% of exercise group was recovered, compared to about 60% for the other two groups. "Participants in the exercise group were more likely than those in the medication group to be partially or fully recovered at the 6-month follow-up visit. In contrast, patients receiving combination therapy were no more likely to be categorized as partially or fully recovered than were patients in the medication group. In addition, only 8% of remitted patients in the exercise group had relapsed, compared to 38% in the medication group and 31% in the combination group."
I got this information in a class I'm taking from John Ratey, MD (co-author of Driven to Distraction and Shadow Syndromes and A User's Guide to the Brain). It was from an article in Psychosomatic Medicine 62:633-638 (2000) called Exercise Treatment for Major Depression: Maintenancy of Therapeutic Benefit at 10 months by Babyak, M, et. al.
Another article published in The Journal of Sports Medicine 35:114-117 (2001) called Benefits from aerobic exercise in patients with major depression: A pilot study by Dimeo, F., et. al looked at 12 patients (10 of whom had refractory depression -- that means they had already been treated with two different SSRI medication without any improvement).
This group did aerobic exercise on a treadmill for 30 minutes for 10 days. At the end of this time they found that 6 patients experienced significant improvement, 2 slight improvement, and 4 unchanged. Half of the refractory depression group had experienced significant improvement!
Their conclusion was that "Aerobic exercixse can produce substantial improvement in mood in patients with major depressive disorders in a short time."
The study also noted that since antidepressive medications have a two to four week latency period before they begin to take therapeutic effect, exercise offers "clinical benefit not obtainable with currently available pharmacological treatments. Furthermore, a substantial percentage of patients show no improvement despite an optimal dosage of antidepressants. For these patients, aerobic training could offer a safe therapeutic option."
"Meta-analysis has shown that even a single exercise bout can improve mood."
I'll be sharing more about this in the exercise section under the topic "Harnessing the Psychiatric Benefits of Exercise".
Take care!
Scattered