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Exercise may be as beneficial as medication to treat depressionNew research looked at 73 studies on nearly 5,000 people with depression and found that exercise and medication offer similar benefitsBoth exercise and antidepressants impact the levels of serotonin in the brain

Exercise may be as effective as medication to treat depression, a new study says.

Researchers looked at the results from 73 different studies on an estimated 5,000 people with depression, and found that “exercise may be moderately more effective than a control intervention for reducing symptoms of depression.” These findings were published by the Cochrane Library, a collective of independent medical research. 

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At the very least, researchers said that exercise can offer parallel benefits: “Exercise appears to be no more or less effective than psychological or pharmacological treatments, though this conclusion is based on a few small trials,” the study says. 

The reason is that “exercise can help improve neurotransmitter function, like serotonin as well as dopamine and endorphins,” Dr. Stephen Mateka, medical director of psychiatry at Inspira Health, tells NPR. “So there is certainly overlap between exercise and how antidepressants offer relief.”  

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According to the Cleveland Clinic, regular exercise can increase serotonin levels. Similarly, antidepressants like SSRIs work by increasing serotonin levels in your brain.

When it comes to which type of exercise is most effective, researchers found that a combination of cardio and resistance training is more beneficial than cardio alone, with benefits observed between 13 and 36 workout sessions. 

Still, researchers point out that more studies need to be done, writing, “Future research should focus on improving the quality of the studies, working out which characteristics of exercise are effective for different people, and ensuring different types of people are included in the studies so that health equity issues can be considered.”