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BOB HIRSHON (host):
Preventing depression with exercise. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.
When it comes to reducing cases of depression, an eleven-year study of nearly 34,000 adults suggests that little bit of exercise can go a long way. In the American Journal of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales psychiatrist Sam Harvey, and his colleagues say that just a small amount of exercise led to large reductions.
SAM HARVEY (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia):
Going from doing nothing to doing one or two hours of exercise a week, that made a big difference in terms of people’s risk of developing new onset of depression symptoms. But actually once people were doing one or two hours per week, doing more than that didn’t seem to make much of a difference in terms of their mental health.
HIRSHON:
They saw no correlation between exercise and other mental health conditions, such as anxiety. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.
Story by Bob Hirshon