Facilitated physical activity as a treatment for depressed adults: randomised controlled trial. Melanie Chalder, research fellow1, Nicola J Wiles, senior lecturer1, John Campbell, professor2, Sandra P Hollinghurst, senior lecturer1, Anne M Haase, senior lecturer3, Adrian H Taylor, professor4, Kenneth R Fox, professor3, Ceire Costelloe, research associate1, Aidan Searle, research associate1, Helen Baxter, research associate1, Rachel Winder, associate research fellow2, Christine Wright, associate research fellow2, Katrina M Turner, lecturer1, Michael Calnan, professor5, Deborah A Lawlor, professor1, Tim J Peters, professor6, Deborah J Sharp, professor1, Alan A Montgomery, reader1, Glyn Lewis, professor1 Author Affiliations Correspondence to: M Chalder melanie.chalder@bristol.ac.ukAccepted 22 March 2012 Abstract.
Exercise doesn't help depression, study concludes. A study into whether physical activity alleviates the symptoms of depression has found there is no benefit.
Research published in the British Medical Journal suggests that adding a physical activity intervention to usual care did not reduce symptoms of depression more than usual care alone. This contrasts with current clinical guidance which recommends exercise to help those suffering from the mental illness, which affects one in six adults in Britain at any one time. To carry out the study researchers recruited 361 patients aged 18 to 69 years who had recently been diagnosed with depression. Trial participants were then split into two groups to receive either the physical activity intervention in addition to usual care, or usual care on its own and were followed up for 12 months to assess any change in their symptoms. But the study found that adding exercise failed to alleviate symptoms of depression more than usual care alone, only increasing levels of physical activity.