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Iowa State lands millions to investigate exercise impact on depression, therapy
âThere are lots of people who don't want to do medication-based treatmentâ
Vanessa Miller
Jan. 15, 2024 5:30 am, Updated: Jan. 15, 2024 7:32 am
With mounting scientific evidence showing exercise can reduce stress, anxiety and symptoms of depression, one Iowa State University associate professor wants to know why and how, and whether the type and amount of exercise matters.
âIf we can figure out whatâs going on, then we can maximize those mechanisms and come up with the best program or prescription for an individual with anxiety or depression,â said ISU associate professor of kinesiology Jacob Meyer, who recently landed two National Institute of Mental Health grants providing him resources to try to answer those questions.
The longer of the two projects â a $3.6 million, five-year study â gives him three years to recruit 200 adults with depression for a 16-week trial to test whether resistance training, also known as weight training, can be as helpful as aerobic exercise like running or biking has been shown to be.
The second, a $1.5 million, two-year study, aims to explore whether and how exercise might amplify benefits of therapy.
âOne of the big issues with mental health treatment is that there are lots of people who don't want to do medication-based treatment, or who want to have some alternatives to medication-based treatments,â Meyer said. âSo we're really trying to figure out what are the best options for people ⌠especially if they're interested in a non-pharmacological approach to improve their depression.â
Does weight lifting help?
These inquiries are a continuation of Meyerâs yearslong look into the impact of exercise on depression â which winter months can amplify with its dark days, gray skies, arctic temperatures and heavy snow keeping people indoors for days.
From 2020 to 2022, Meyer and his ISU team led smaller pilot studies that produced âpromising results,â finding â among other things â that 30 minutes of exercise might reduce depression symptoms for at least 75 minutes after the workout and also amplify therapy benefits.
âThat led into the grant proposals for these larger projects that have since been funded,â Meyer said. âAnd now we're hoping that we're off to the races to figure it out.â
The newly-funded resistance exercise study started recruitment this month in hopes of answering three key questions over the next five years:
- Does weight training reduce symptoms of depression?
- If so, does the reason have to do with blood flow to the brain and within the brain?
- And is it possible to identify who would benefit most from weight training?
âThere is a lot of research that suggests that people with mental health conditions have areas of the brain that are either under-activated or over-activated, and we think itâs possible there is some re-regulation of brain blood flow patterns through resistance exercise training that may mediate reductions in depression and anxiety,â Meyer said.
Each participant will be randomly assigned to a low-dose or high-dose version of resistance training â all performed in ISUâs âWellbeing and Exercise Laboratory,â which Meyer directs. By splitting the participants into two groups, he said, researchers will be able to observe whether the benefit is coming from doing any workout at all, or whether weight lifting â specifically â is helping.
âWe're going to see if there's something in particular that's helpful about working out at a higher amount versus a lower amount,â he said. âBecause it's quite possible that just coming in, working out with somebody twice a week, all of the social factors, the planning, all of the stuff that you have to do, all of that might be what actually is helping to address the depression.â
If the high-dose group is doing better, âthen we're pretty sure that there's some specific, unique benefits to that higher resistance mode that's resulting in the benefit.â Like, for example, the way sets and reps involved in weight lifting provide âinconsistent but patterned demands on the vascular system.â
That type of demand differs from the consistent blood flow produced during aerobic exercise.
ISU researchers will use non-invasive tools like Doppler ultrasound to measure study participantsâ brain blood flow â while also taking data on the structure and function of blood vessels in the neck that flow to the brain.
âThis comprehensive approach gives the team the best chance of identifying the effects of major depressive disorder on brain blood flow and the ability of resistance exercise to improve brain blood flow in this group,â according to ISU assistant professor of kinesiology Wes Lefferts, who will lead a team of graduate students in measuring study participantsâ brain blood flow.
Can exercise enhance therapy?
The separate study on whether exercise can amplify the benefits of therapy began in November and is running into 2025. Meyer also is leading that research, consisting of an eight-week randomized controlled trial involving 40 adults with âmajor depressive disorder,â also called âclinical depression.â
Every week, participants will either do a moderately intense workout for 30 minutes before meeting with a therapist or rest quietly before their therapy session. The question is whether exercise can âprime or fertilizeâ the brain to engage with emotionally challenging work.
âThat one is nice because it uses exercise to potentially enhance the therapy itself,â Meyer said. âIt's not really looking at exercise as the treatment. Instead, it's using exercise to get somebody into the right frame of mind to then walk into a therapy clinic and have a better experience in therapy.â
Given the research is based in the ISU wellness lab, Meyer said his team is recruiting largely from the Central Iowa region.
âFor the therapy project, people come in once a week,â he said. âFor the resistance training project, they come in twice a week ⌠so there is some amount of time commitment.â
But, should findings produce new tools and guides for non-pharmaceutical depression aids, their impact could be much farther reaching.
âIn Iowa in particular, our mental health care system is pretty strapped â in terms of opportunity,â Meyer said. âThere's often a really long waitlist. It can be difficult to get into a provider. But, especially if there's something like a resistance exercise program that doesn't require a psychiatrist or psychologist to run it, it might sort of expand the pool of treatment options, and also the ability for people to engage with those treatment options.â
ISU licensed psychologist and associate chair of psychology Nathaniel Wade cited another rewarding aspect of the research.
âThat we have the chance to really help people while we are testing new approaches,â Wade said. âIn past clinical research, the participants have found significant relief and healing all while adding to our scientific understanding.â
ISU exercise-mental health studies
For more information on current research projects, visit: research.hs.iastate.edu/wellbeing-exercise
Contact the lab at WellEx@iastate.edu or at (515) 294-5230.
Contact Professor Jacob Meyer at (515) 294-1386 or jdmeyer3@iastate.edu.
Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.
Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com