Exercise might not help with depression, anxiety


Filed Under Beat Anxiety, Overcome Depression | Aug 5, MDT 12:21 pm

A recent study from the Netherlands hints that voluntary exercise, long thought to alleviate the symptoms of depression and anxiety, may not in fact work as claimed.

Instead, genetic factors might better explain the relationship between the two.  When tracking genetically identical twins, scientists found that when one twin exercises, the other twin was less likely to show symptoms of depression and anxiety. This wasn’t true for fraternal twins, who aren’t as closely matched genetically.

This study was about voluntary exercise, which isn’t the same as being on a training program overseen by medical professionals. In other words, if you’ve never been a busy body and you’re depressed, a structured exercise program might help you.

As the press release mentions:

The results do not mean that exercise cannot benefit those with anxiety or depression, the authors note, only that additional trials would be needed to justify this type of therapy. “Only voluntary leisure-time exercise is influenced by genetic factors, whereas the other type of exercise [directed and monitored by someone else] is environment-driven. The absence of causal effects of voluntary exercise on symptoms of anxiety and depression does not imply that manipulation of exercise cannot be used to change such symptoms,” they write. “The antidepressant effects of exercise may only occur if the exercise is monitored and part of a therapeutic program.”

Two points to take from this study:

1.  It’s becoming increasingly apparent that genetics plays a strong role in determining the kind of mental states we’re likely to have.

2. Scientists are still mystified by this role, and are decades away from fully understanding it.

No matter what plan of action you take to manage your depression and anxiety, realize that part of the issue has to do with who you are on a genetic level. I still think, to a very large degree, that your environment, the society you are born into, will end up shaping the way your genes manifest themselves.  Depression has it’s environmental factors.

In future posts, we’ll cover the matter of epigenetics, which may account for why people who share similar genes don’t always share the same genetic conditions. Epigenetics undermines the fatalism that’s been a hallmark of genetics for the last few decades. It’s a very new field and, like pharmacogenetics, it will almost certainly alter the way we practice medicine.