In the 09/14 issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Rosenbaum et al. conducted a meta-analysis on 39 randomized controlled trials of adults with mental illness other than dysthymia or eating disorders. They found that physical activity reduced symptoms depressive symptoms. Studies published in Chinese also suggest that physical activity may reduce negative and positive symptoms of schizophrenia. There was also a moderate effect of physical activity on quality of life. Most of the interventions were aerobic-based. Unfortunately, exercise protocols were poorly described in many of the studies and no particular protocol can be recommended a this time. There were no significant difference in depression outcome between studies using or not using the aerobic-training guidelines of the American College of Sports Medicine.
Serge Sevy, MD 