Regular Exercise may Help Lower Depression

Exercise plays an important role in our overall physical and emotional well-being, and according to a recent study, people who regularly hit the gym may be less likely to suffer from depression. 

Statistics show that more than 120 million people suffer from this mental disorder. While antidepressants and psychological therapies can aid in treating the condition, exercise may also be used as a more natural treatment that can alter hormone levels which could be responsible for part of the problem.

While previous findings only showed limited evidence of the benefit between exercise and reduced rates of depression, more trials have lead researchers to believe in a stronger connection. They reviewed the results of 39 trials involving 2,326 people who were diagnosed with depression, looking at the severity of patients' symptoms that were assessed via standard scales used to monitor depression.

The trials compared exercise via control treatments or no treatment, in which the researchers saw moderate benefits for the treatment of depression.

"Our review suggested that exercise might have a moderate effect on depression," said one of the authors of the review via a press release, Gillian Mead of the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, UK. "We can't tell from currently available evidence which kinds of exercise regimes are most effective or whether the benefits continue after a patient stops their exercise programme.

"When we looked only at those trials that we considered to be high quality, the effect of exercise on depression was small and not statistically significant," Mead added. "The evidence base would be strengthened by further large-scale, high quality studies."

More information regarding the study can be found via the The Cochrane Library.