MAY 7, 2020 - Physical Exercise: Lowering Mortality Among Patients with Depression

SPECIAL REPORT: ADDRESSING MORTALITY

By Martino Belvederi Murri, MD and Panteleimon Ekkekakis, PhD

“People suffering from depression die, on average, 10 years earlier than non-depressed individuals.” You must have heard this while attending a conference, reading a journal, or simply in a discussion with a colleague. It has little to do with the risk of suicide: we are mainly talking about death due to physical causes, and in particular cardiovascular causes. Any mental health professional, upon learning of this fact, may have felt uneasy, even inadequately prepared to address such a complicated issue. After all, until a few years ago, we thought that colleagues from other branches of medicine would take care of those aspects, right? Well, no. A million times, no.