Category: Depression

The symptom occurs in 50 percent of people with depression.

Physical pain is a surprisingly common sign of depression, research reveals.

Symptoms such as headaches, stomach aches, dizziness, muscle and leg pain are present in over half of people with depression.

Indeed, the physical symptoms of depression are nearly as common as the emotional ones, such as moodiness, lack of motivation and tiredness.

Even after successful treatment with antidepressants, the physical symptoms can linger after the emotional ones have improved.

Professor Kurt Kroenke, who led the study, said:

“Depression is a risk factor for symptoms of pain.

The most reports of pain – such as muscle pain, headaches, leg pain – are two or three times more common in people with depression.”

The conclusions come from a study of 573 depressed people visiting 37 different clinics in the US.

The results revealed that common antidepressants were less effective when the physical symptoms were more severe.

In one-third of patients, the physical symptoms lasted longer than the emotional ones.

Professor Kroenke said:

“Physical symptoms may not respond to common antidepressant treatment as much as the emotional symptoms.

Even though the physical symptoms may be related to or aggravated by the depression, they can linger longer than the emotional symptoms.”

Professor Kroenke continued:

“While physical symptoms showed, on average, some improvement with antidepressant treatment, the improvement was typically less than was reported for emotional symptoms.

Most of the improvement for the physical symptoms occurred within the first month of treatment, while the emotional symptoms continued to improve over a nine-month period.”

The study was published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine (Greco et al., 2004).

Avoiding antidepressants has its benefits, says psychiatrist Professor Madhukar Trivedi.

Exercise and psychotherapy are often better than antidepressants for treating moderate depression, a depression expert argues.

Exercise helps to reduce inflammation in the body, which lowers depression and heart disease risk.

While exercise can be difficult to maintain when feeling hopeless, there are ways to combat this.

Professor Madhukar Trivedi, a psychiatrist and co-author of a study on depression and exercise, said:

“Maintaining a healthy dose of exercise is difficult, but it can be done.

It just requires more effort and addressing unique barriers to regular exercise.”

Professor Trivedi has some recommendations for depressed patients:

• Exercise at the same time each day, but don’t worry if you have to skip a day or two.
• Log your progress somewhere.
• Change exercises to keep them interesting.
• Take a friend along.
• Get someone to hold you accountable for doing the exercise.

Avoiding antidepressants has its benefits, said Dr Trivedi:

“There is value to not starting a medication if it’s not needed.

Being active and getting psychotherapy are sometimes the best prescription, especially in younger patients who don’t have severe depression.”

Exercise may also be best for people with chronic conditions like obesity, diabetes and kidney disease.

Fitness is midlife reduces depression risk

The study included almost 18,000 people who were tracked from middle age onwards.

The results showed that people who maintain good fitness levels in midlife are at a much lower risk of depression.

Those with higher levels of fitness were also much less likely to die from heart disease.

The results are also relevant to younger people, said Professor Trivedi:

“This is the age where we typically see physical activity drop off because they’re not involved in school activities and sports.

The earlier you maintain fitness, the better chance of preventing depression, which in the long run will help lower the risk of heart disease.”

The study was published in JAMA Psychiatry (Willis et al., 2018).