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Regular workouts at the gym may be more effective than drugs in treating serious depression, according to a new study. Three 30-minute exercise sessions a week greatly reduce the chances of mental illness returning for at least six months, say researchers.

The findings, from a team at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, suggest that patients find it easier to cope with depression if they control their own therapy. Last year the team showed that exercise was better than drugs in relieving depression among 156 middle-aged patients. They found that after 16 weeks, patients who exercised showed significant improvement compared to those taking drugs or a combination of drugs and exercise.

The new study, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, showed that the benefits of exercise persisted even longer. After six months, eight percent of those in the exercise group saw their depression return, compared with 38 percent who only took the drug. Dr James Blumenthal, who led the team, said: "We had assumed that exercise and medication together would have had an additive effect, but this turned out not to be the case.

"We found that there was an inverse relationship between exercise and the risk of relapsing -- the more one exercised, the less likely one would see their depressive symptoms return."


Source: Daily Telegraph, September 21, 2000

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Study Finds St. John's Wort Effective As Impiramine

St. John's wort, given to patients with mild to moderate depression, offers the same benefits as the anti-depressant imipramine, with fewer side effects, according to researchers. "The results of this study support the conclusion that the two treatments are therapeutically equivalent," writes Helmut Woelk, at the Akademisches Lehrkrankenhaus der Universitat Giessan, Germany, in the September 2nd issue of the British Medical Journal.

"There was some evidence to suggest that the hypericum (St. John's wort) may be better than imipramine in relieving anxiety associated with depression although there were no differences in any of the measures of efficacy," he continued. Although the two treatments had the same clinical effect on depression, the patients receiving St. John's wort experienced fewer side effects than those using the imipramine. While 4 of 157 (3 percent) patients using St. John's wort stopped treatment because of adverse effects, 26 of 167 (16 percent) taking imiprimine withdrew from treatment because of negative events, including dry mouth, sweating, dizziness, nausea, weakness and headache.

Woelk evaluated the safety and effectiveness of the St. John's wort in extract form, comparing it with 150 mg (considered a full therapeutic dose) of imipramine, one of the most frequently prescribed antidepressants. The 324 participants, who were patients in 40 psychiatric, internal medicine and general medicine practices in Germany, were randomly treated with either 0.2 percent St. John's wort extract, or 75 mg of imipramine twice daily.

St. John's wort, or Hypericum perforatum, has been used since ancient times for treating a variety of ills, and is now a licensed medication used to treat depression and anxiety in many European countries. Although its value has been touted in previous research, few studies have actually established whether St. John's wort is as effective as tricyclic antidepressants or placebos. "In view of the mounting evidence of hypericum's comparable efficacy to other antidepressants and its safety record, hypericum should be considered for first line treatment in mild to moderate depression, especially in the primary care setting," Woelk concludes.