Exercise As Medication

by Patrick Appel

Gretchen Reynolds checks the results of a study on exercise as a treatment for depression. Participants were assigned an easy or a slightly more difficult workout routine:

More patients improved in the group that completed the longer, brisker workouts than in the group assigned the easier exercise, but more of them also dropped out of the study. “We need to find ways to support people’s efforts to exercise,” Dr. Trivedi said. “It’s not going to be enough to casually say, ‘Go for a walk.’” Exercise, if it’s to be medicinal in depression treatments, will have to be monitored, he said, so it can’t be shrugged off.

Even then, many people will not respond. Almost 70 percent of the volunteers in this study did not achieve full remission.