Exercise is as effective as antidepressants for mild depression

A landmark study by James Blumenthal at Duke University in 1999 randomly assigned depressed patients to aerobic exercise, antidepressant medication (sertraline), or both. After 16 weeks, all three groups showed similar improvements in depression scores. A follow-up at 10 months found that the exercise group had lower relapse rates than the medication group. The mechanism involves increases in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which promotes the growth of new neurons — particularly in the hippocampus, a region that shrinks with chronic depression.

Source: Blumenthal et al., Archives of Internal Medicine (1999)