Category: Depression

People felt more interested in all activities, in a better mood and it reduced feelings of worthlessness.

Lifting weights and strength training help to reduce depression, a review of the research finds.

Strength training can substantially improve people’s symptoms even for those with moderate depression and those who do not train that often.

In fact, strength training, including weight-lifting, is particularly effective for people who have more severe depression symptoms, the study concluded.

It also didn’t matter if people ‘bulked up’ or not — there was no link between having more muscle and feeling better.

The main thing was just to do the workout.

After strength training or weight-lifting, people felt more interested in all activities, in a better mood and it reduced feelings of worthlessness.

The studies cannot tell us why strength training is beneficial, but it may be because it increases blood flow to the brain.

Previous studies have also shown that weight-lifting reduces anxiety symptoms.

Mr Brett Gordon, the study’s first author, said:

“Interestingly, larger improvements were found among adults with depressive symptoms indicative of mild-to-moderate depression compared to adults without such scores, suggesting RET may be particularly effective for those with greater depressive symptoms.”

The conclusions come from a review of 33 separate studies involving 1,877 people.

The studies included both the depressed and nondepressed.

The results showed it didn’t matter if people went to the gym five times a week or just twice a week, or how many repetitions they completed — the benefits were roughly the same.

All that really mattered was showing up and completing the workout.

The study’s authors conclude:

“Resistance exercise training significantly reduced depressive symptoms among adults regardless of health status, total prescribed volume of RET, or significant improvements in strength.”

Weight training has similar benefits to mental health to those provided by aerobic exercise, like jogging.

This is quite apart from its physiological benefits, such as increasing bone strength and preventing other chronic conditions.

The authors recommend working out at least twice a week and performing around 10 repetitions of 10 different strength-building exercises.

The study was published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry (Gordon et al., 2018).

Those that made the change were less depressed and anxious as well as feeling less fatigue.

Vegetarian and vegan diets are linked to a reduced risk of depression and anxiety, multiple studies have found.

Plus, there is no need to be strict: altering food intake towards a more plant-based diet may still provide a boost to mental health.

One study carried out in the US involved half of 292 people being given weekly instruction in following a vegan diet.

Over the 18 weeks of the study, all had access to healthy vegan options at work for their lunch.

These included black bean chilli, leafy green salads and vegetable hummus sandwiches.

After four months, those that made a shift towards being more vegan were less depressed and anxious as well as feeling less fatigue.

They also felt their overall health was better.

Dr Neal Barnard, study co-author, said:

“The same foods that curb the risk for obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, may help boost overall mood.

In the evolving landscape of neurological research, a plant-based diet may help in treating symptoms of anxiety and depression.”

Vegetarian diets may also provide a similar boost to mental health as vegan diets.

Another study of 15,093 people in Spain found that a pro-vegetarian eating pattern was linked to lower levels of depression.

One nice thing to emerge from this study was that becoming moderately vegetarian was as good as being a strict vegetarian for depression.

Again, people did not have to become completely vegetarian to see the benefit, just lean in that direction.

Health benefits of plants

The health benefits of plant-based diets are also well-known, reducing the risk of heart disease, cancer and other illnesses.

According to one review of 86 separate studies:

“This comprehensive meta-analysis reports a significant protective effect of a vegetarian diet versus the incidence and/or mortality from ischemic heart disease (-25%) and incidence from total cancer (-8%). Vegan diet conferred a significant reduced risk (-15%) of incidence from total cancer.”

Note that some studies, like this one, have linked vegetarianism to increased depression, although these are in the minority.

The studies were published in the journals American Journal of Health Promotion, BMC Medicine, Critical Reviews in Food Science And Nutrition (Agarwal et al., 2015; Sánchez-Villegas et al., 2015; Dinu et al., 2017).

Very common vitamin deficiency linked to higher levels of depression.

Almost half of young women have insufficient vitamin D levels, which is linked to depression.

The study also found that over one-third of young women had signs of clinical depression.

Dr David Kerr, the psychologist who led the study, said:

“Depression has multiple, powerful causes and if vitamin D is part of the picture, it is just a small part.

But given how many people are affected by depression, any little inroad we can find could have an important impact on public health.”

While many suspect a link between the vitamin deficiency and depression, studies have not often confirmed it.

Dr Kerr continued:

“The new study was prompted in part because there is a widely held belief that vitamin D and depression are connected, but there is not actually much scientific research out there to support the belief.

I think people hear that vitamin D and depression can change with the seasons, so it is natural for them to assume the two are connected.”

Vitamin deficiency

To test the link researchers recruited 185 female college students between the ages of 18-25.

The study focused on women because they are almost twice as likely to suffer from depression.

Their vitamin D levels were measured from their blood.

Depression symptoms were checked every week for five weeks.

The results showed that women of colour had particularly high vitamin deficiency for vitamin D, with 61% being deficient.

This compared to low vitamin D levels in 35% of other women.

Vitamin D is important for both mental and physical health.

Physically, it has been linked to better bone health, muscle function, and cardiovascular health.

Vitamin D is created in the body with exposure to sunlight.

It is also found in some foods, like milk, which is fortified with it.

Dr Kerr concluded:

“Vitamin D supplements are inexpensive and readily available.

They certainly shouldn’t be considered as alternatives to the treatments known to be effective for depression, but they are good for overall health.”

The vitamin deficiency study is published in the journal Psychiatry Research (Kerr et al., 2015)