The findings aren’t new but they are important and were published by Duke University a few years ago. In a clinical setting Duke demonstrated that 30 minutes of moderate exercise (e.g. brisk walking) three times a week was just as effective as drug therapy in relieving symptoms of depression.

Researchers studied 156 elderly patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder. They were assigned to three groups: exercise, medication, or a combination of medication and exercise. To the researchers’ surprise, after 16 weeks all three groups showed significant and similar improvement in measurements of depression. They noted some patients who took the anti-depressants saw their symptoms alleviated sooner but by the 16th week, the group differences had disappeared

A follow up study six months later indicated that patients who continued to exercise had statistically significant improvement relative to those who took anti-depression medication or who took medication and exercised.

“One of the conclusions we can draw from this is that exercise may be just as effective as medication and may be a better alternative for certain patients,” said the lead researcher, Duke psychologist James Blumenthal.

And in response to the follow-up study Blumenthal said “the effectiveness of exercise seems to persist over time, and patients who respond well to exercise and maintain their exercise have a much smaller risk of relapsing.”

“Relapse,” of course, means a couple of things to us. I figure we should do anything we can to prevent it. Those of you who’ve read My Way Out know that moderate exercise is recommended three times a week. And those of you who do it already know it helps.

Give it a try if you haven’t. A brisk walk (approved by your doc) is all it takes.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 19th, 2006 at 10:58 am and is filed under Diet, nutrition and exercise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.