A comprehensive review of existing studies has led the European Psychiatric Association (EPA) to issue new guidelines to promote exercise as a key adjunctive treatment for mental health conditions.

The meta-review led the team of scientists to suggest that a regime of structured exercise should be added to standard medication and psychotherapy. The authors found that exercise can effectively reduce mental health symptoms, improve cognition, and strengthen cardiovascular fitness among patients with depression and schizophrenia.

The study appears in the journal European Psychiatry.

The study discovered that moderate intensity aerobic exercise, two to three times a week for at least 150 minutes total, can reduce symptoms of depression and schizophrenia. Moreover, exercise was discovered to improve cognition and cardiorespiratory health in schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

Evidence also supports combining aerobic with resistance exercise to improve outcomes for individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and major depression.

The EPA guidance has been endorsed by a multidisciplinary team of experts in physiotherapy, psychiatry, psychology, and sports medicine.

“Our comprehensive review provides clear evidence that physical activity has a central role in reducing the burden of mental health symptoms in people with depression and schizophrenia. Our guidelines provide direction for future clinical practice.

“Specifically, we provide convincing evidence that it is now time for professionally delivered physical activity interventions to move from the fringes of health care and become a core component in the treatment of mental health conditions,” explained lead investigator Brendon Stubbs, Ph.D., King’s College London.

Long-term outcomes and full recovery among people with mental illness are often poor, even for those receiving appropriate medications. People with mental illness also experience very poor physical health and drastic physical health inequalities, which lead to this early mortality.

“Signs and symptoms of premature cardiovascular diseases can be identified early in the disease course of mental disorders, when patients are in their 30s to 40s,” commented senior-author Kai G. Kahl, Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry, Social Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Hannover Medical School, Germany.

“Interventions that modify cardiometabolic risks are clearly needed, and should be recommended as early as possible, as an integral part of a multimodal treatment plan.” Thus, new add-on treatments for mental illness that can support full recovery and address poor physical health are urgently needed.

The guidance advocates the development of structural changes in hospitals and other institutions concerned with the treatment of mental disorders that establish exercise facilities and physiotherapists or exercise specialists to support the treatment of severe mental illness. It also points to the need to modify insurance reimbursement guidelines to include the recommended treatments.

This study provides evidence that physical activity plays an important role in reducing cardiovascular symptoms and improving physical health and fitness.

“Our systematic review of top-tier evidence has convincingly demonstrated that exercise training, delivered by physical activity professionals, does indeed provide an effective add-on treatment for improving both physical and mental health outcomes in people with mental illness,” said Stubbs.

Additional research on the effect of exercise therapy on patients with bipolar disorder, on anthropometric measures (such as BMI), as well as its long-term impact and cost-effectiveness is recommended.

Investigators believe a better understanding of the neurobiological mechanism by which exercise affects mental health, and the potential impact of sedentary behaviors on mental health, are important areas for future study.

Source: Elsevier

New EU Guidelines Tap Exercise As Integral to Mental Health Treatments