July 22 — The drug that turned around the sex lives of many older men has proven in a small trial to also help women on antidepressants who experience sexual dysfunction.

The eight-week study found that Viagra, also known as sildenafil, helped women achieve orgasm.

“In this study population, sildenafil treatment of sexual dysfunction in women taking SRIs was associated with a reduction in adverse sexual effects,” the study’s authors wrote.

Results of the study are in the July 23/30 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The lead author of the study, Dr. H. George Nurnberg, of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, in Albuquerque, declined to be interviewed for this article.

Selective and nonselective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and Effexor, comprise up to 90 percent of the 180 million antidepressant prescriptions filled in the United States each year, according to the study. But while these medications are very effective at treating clinical depression, one of their known drawbacks are sexual side effects.

Nurnberg and his colleagues previously reported in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, that Viagra was helpful for men who suffered from erectile dysfunction associated with the use of antidepressant medications.

In the current study, undertaken at seven research centers, they turned their attention to women. The study included 98 women — half of whom received Viagra and half who received a placebo — who were told to take the pills before sexual activity.

Women taking Viagra reported an improved ability to reach orgasm and increased orgasm satisfaction, according to the study authors.

But 43 percent of the women taking Viagra also reported headaches, versus 27 percent of those on placebo. Almost one-quarter of those using Viagra reporting flushing, while none of the women on placebo did. And 37 percent of women taking Viagra reported nasal congestion compared to 6 percent of women on placebo. Nausea and anxiousness were reported more often in the group taking placebo.

“The libido response in women is such a complex problem. If women are unhappy in a relationship, it can affect libido. If it hurts, it can affect libido. If she doesn’t feel good about herself, it can affect libido. It’s hard to tease all of those factors out,” said Dr. Judi Chervenak, a reproductive endocrinologist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.

And, she added, “There’s no definitive answer to date on how antidepressants cause a lack of libido. It could be because they’re affecting dopamine, and women may be experiencing changes in dopamine that indirectly affect vaginal lubrication and arousal and cause decreased blood flow.”

Of the current study, Chervenak said, “It’s an enticing study, and it makes me want to know more. Does it make me want to prescribe Viagra right off the bat? Not at this point. I’d suggest first that patients keep a symptom diary, so we can figure out what their issue is. Is it arousal? Is it decreased blood flow? Is it an orgasm problem?”

“Another possibility might be to work with their psychiatrist,” she added. “Would it be better to change the antidepressant or to taper the dose? What about a drug holiday? Although you have to be careful, and people can’t do that on their own, because there can be potentially devastating problems if you come off these medications too quickly.”

“This study has opened up many questions, and hopefully, we’ll learn more in the future,” concluded Chervenak.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Pfizer, which manufactures Viagra, told the Associated Press that the company has no plans to seek approval for using the drug as a treatment for female sexual dysfunction. The company ended its own research on Viagra for women in 2004, she added.

SOURCES: Judi Chervenak, M.D., reproductive endocrinologist, department of obstetrics and gynecology, Montefiore Medical Center, and associate clinical professor, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York City; July 23/30, 2008, Journal of the American Medical Association

July 18 — Giving up your few drinks a day may lead to health issues, including depression, a new study says.

“Our research in an animal model establishes a causal link between abstinence from alcohol drinking and depression,” study senior author Clyde W. Hodge, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology in the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, said in a UNC news release. “In mice that voluntarily drank alcohol for 28 days, depression-like behavior was evident 14 days after termination of alcohol drinking. This suggests that people who stop drinking may experience negative mood states days or weeks after the alcohol has cleared their systems.”

The research, published online in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, also found that the mice developed a reduced capacity for the brain to produce new neurons, a process called neurogenesis. This lack of neuron production occurred in the hippocampus, an area critical for learning and memory.

Recent studies have also shown neuron development in the hippocampus may regulate mood, Hodge said.

“Thus, people who drink moderate alcohol socially, or for potential health benefits, may experience negative mood or diminished cognitive abilities due to a loss of the brain’s ability to form new neurons,” he said.

However, the researchers also found that treating the mice on the wagon for 14 days with an antidepressant prevented the depression and restored the brain’s ability to produce new cells.

“Treatment with antidepressant drugs may help people who suffer from both alcoholism and depression by restoring the brain’s ability to form new neurons,” Hodge said. “Moreover, this research provides an animal model of alcohol-related depression with which we can begin to fully understand the neurobiology underlying co-occurring alcoholism and depression, and thereby develop successful treatment options.”

Some scientific evidence has long suggested that moderate drinking may help prevent heart disease, certain types of stroke and some forms of cancer.

SOURCE: University of North Carolina School of Medicine, news release, July 8, 2008

More than one million Americans currently participate in the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) program. While AA participants are reportedly notorious for their coffee drinking and cigarette smoking, very little research has quantified their consumption of these two products. Recent findings confirm that coffee and cigarette use among this population is greater than among the general U.S. population: most AA members drink coffee and more than half smoke.

Results will be published in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.

“Drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes are part of the culture of AA, but we knew little about the degree to which this occurred, how much more prevalent these behaviors were compared to the general American population, or why AA participants actually drank coffee or smoked cigarettes,” said Peter R. Martin, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology, director of the Vanderbilt Addiction Center at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and corresponding author for the study.

Martin added that many questions remain about the effects of coffee and cigarettes on recovering alcoholics. “What do cigarettes or coffee do for them; how do they believe that they are affected by smoking and drinking coffee?,” he asked. “Is this behavior simply a way to bond or connect in AA meetings, analogous to the peace pipe among North American Indians, or do constituents of these natural compounds result in pharmacological actions that affect the brain? Perhaps most interesting, how do these consummatory behaviors affect the brain and what is their role in recovery?”

While the most common cause of death in long-term recovering alcoholics is related to the health consequences of cigarette smoking, Martin noted, recent epidemiological studies have shown that coffee consumption is not harmful to health and may, in fact, reduce the risk of death from suicide, certain cancers, and other diseases.

While that may be true, noted Robert Swift, professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University Medical School, little is known about coffee’s role vis-à-vis abstinence, whether drinking coffee makes it easier or harder to stay sober. “It’s possible that coffee is even a gateway drug, with coffee drinking beginning at about the time persons begin using alcohol. In addition, a potential negative interaction is coffee’s known negative effects on sleep. Many alcoholics in long-term recovery frequently have trouble with sleep, and coffee consumption could make sleep problems worse.”

A strength of this study, Swift added, is that relatively little is known about AA, why some persons are helped by it while others are not. “The authors have been successful in gaining the confidence of AA groups and incorporating them into a research study,” he said.

Martin and his colleagues asked participants (n=289) in all open AA meetings during the summer of 2007 in Nashville, TN to self-report a variety of information: a “timeline followback” for coffee, cigarette and alcohol consumption, the AA Affiliation Scale, coffee consumption and effects questions, the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence, and the Smoking Effects Questionnaire.

“The most important finding was that not all recovering alcoholics smoke cigarettes while almost all drink coffee,” said Martin.

More specifically, most individuals (88.5%) consumed coffee and approximately 33 percent drank more than four cups per day. The most common self-reported reasons were because of coffee’s stimulatory effects: feeling better, better concentration, greater alertness. More than half of the respondents (56.9%) smoked cigarettes; of those, 78.7 percent smoked at least half a pack per day, and more than 60 percent were considered highly or very highly dependent. The most common self-reported reasons were because of smoking’s reduction of “negative affect,” which refers to depression, anxiety and irritability. “Many of these negative affective states are described by patients as contributors or triggers to relapse after periods of sobriety,” said Martin.

“I think that it is important for alcohol researchers and clinicians to know that alcoholics, even those who do not use other illicit drugs, are not just addicted to alcohol, but use other psychotropic drugs like caffeine and nicotine,” said Swift. “I found it interesting that coffee contains a lot of psychoactive substances, in addition to caffeine. A second important aspect is the finding that rates of smoking are much higher in alcoholics in recovery than in the general population. Smoking kills and is at least as harmful for alcoholics as is alcohol. Yet, AA tolerates or otherwise does not address smoking in its members.”

“Yet, if coffee is beneficial and cigarettes are harmful to health, AA members seem to be going in the right direction by reducing smoking and perhaps increasing their coffee drinking,” observed Martin. “We are now working on more detailed analyses of results to examine whether these changes in coffee and cigarette use are predictive of recovery from alcoholism per se.”

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Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research (ACER) is the official journal of the Research Society on Alcoholism and the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism. Co-authors of the ACER paper, “Coffee and Cigarette Consumption and Perceived Effects in Recovering Alcoholics Participating in Alcoholics Anonymous in Nashville, TN,” were: Michael S. Reich and A.J. Reid Finlayson in the Vanderbilt Addiction Center in the Department of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine; Mary S. Dietrich in the Department of Biostatistics at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine; and Edward F. Fischer in the Department of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University. The study was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Source: Peter R. Martin, M.D.
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine

Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research

May 7 — Bipolar disorder may be overdiagnosed, say researchers at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University.

They found that fewer than half of patients previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder were assessed using a comprehensive psychiatric diagnostic interview — the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV .

Recent reports suggest that under-diagnosis of bipolar disorder may be an issue, while this study indicates that there’s an equal or greater problem with overdiagnosis, the study authors said.

They looked at 700 psychiatric patients who were interviewed using the SCID and completed a self-administered questionnaire between May 2001 and March 2007. The questionnaire asked patients if they’d been previously diagnosed with bipolar or manic-depressive disorder by a health-care professional.

While 145 of the patients said they’d been previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder, only 43.4 percent were diagnosed based on the SCID. The study also found that people diagnosed based on the SCID were much more likely to have first-degree relatives with the disorder.

The study was published online in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry and was expected to be presented Wednesday at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting, in Washington, D.C.

Overdiagnosis of bipolar disorder may lead to unnecessary use of medications and the risk of harmful side effects, noted lead author Dr. Mark Zimmerman, director of outpatient psychiatry at Rhode Island Hospital and an associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University.

“Clinicians are inclined to diagnose disorders that they feel more comfortable treating. We hypothesize that the increased availability of medications that have been approved for the treatment of bipolar disorder might be influencing clinicians who are unsure whether or not a patient has bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder to err on the side of diagnosing the disorder that is medication responsive,” Zimmerman said in a prepared statement.

“This bias is reinforced by the marketing message of pharmaceutical companies to physicians, which has emphasized the literature on the delayed and under-recognition of bipolar disorder, and may be sensitizing clinicians to avoid missing the diagnosis of bipolar disorder.”

Zimmerman concluded: “The results of this study suggest that bipolar disorder is being overdiagnosed, and we recommend that clinicians use a standardized, validated method in diagnosing bipolar disorder.”

SOURCE: Lifespan health system, news release, May 6, 2008

May 6 — Recently developed types of imaging techniques enable researchers to map brain circuits and chemical systems believed to play a role in depression, bipolar disorder and other mood disorders, and may help lead to improved treatments.

Information about these techniques was expected to be presented Tuesday during a news conference by researchers taking part in U.S. National Institute of Mental Health symposiums at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting, in Washington, D.C.

“These studies contribute new information about how the brain malfunctions in depression and bipolar disorder, what goes wrong with brain chemicals, and where in the brain the problems arise,” Dr. Ellen Leibenluft, of the NIMH, said in a prepared statement. “We find that the brain systems involved and the exact nature of the difficulties differs among patients, even when those patients have similar symptoms. Eventually, data like these will allow us to develop more individualized and targeted treatments for depression.”

In one study, University of Michigan researchers using molecular imaging with positron emission tomography found that patients with untreated major depression had an overall reduction in the concentration of serotonin 1A receptors in the hippocampus, a brain region that helps regulate stress.

“The reductions in these receptors were correlated with the functional impairment of the patients in work and with their families, with greater impairment being associated with lower receptor concentrations in this region,” study author Dr. Jon-Kar Zubieta said in a prepared statement.

The patients responded to treatment with citalopram.

In another study, Zubieta and colleagues found that people with untreated major depression had reduced concentrations of “mu” opioid receptors in the thalamus, an area of the brain involved in the regulation of emotions. The mu receptors play a key role in regulating mood and triggering brain reward systems. A reduction in the receptors was associated with greater concentrations of stress hormones.

The researchers also found that depressed patients who didn’t respond to the antidepressant fluoxetine had lower concentrations of mu receptors in the anterior cingulate, an area of the brain involved in the processing of emotional states.

In other studies, NIMH researchers used PET and functional MRI to identify abnormal patterns of neural activity and chemical function in the brain’s reward pathway that underlie depressed patients’ inability to experience pleasure.

“The identification of brain systems and circuits whose activity can be correlated with specific symptoms is a first step toward the development of more targeted and effective treatments for depression and other disorders of the brain,” Dr. Wayne Drevets, of the NIMH, said in a prepared statement.

In another study, Yale School of Medicine researchers using specialized applications of MRI found that people with bipolar disorder have reduced volume of the brain’s prefrontal cortex and its subcortical connections sites, including the amygdala.

Previous research found that patients with bipolar disorder have abnormal functioning of these brain structures, especially during the processing of emotional stimuli and during tasks that require inhibition of impulsive responses.

In other studies, scientists found that fMRI can help determine whether children have biploar disorder or severe irritability with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder . This suggests that brain imaging may prove useful in making a correct diagnosis.

“We’re finding that these very irritable children with ADHD share some characteristics with children with bipolar disorder but also have significant differences,” said Leibenluft.

Children with these conditions are easily frustrated, have difficulty reading facial emotional cues, and have social cognition deficits.

“Yet what’s happening in the brain during frustration differed between the two groups. So these data indicate that, even when two groups of patients exhibit the same symptoms, the brain mechanisms underlying that symptom can differ. Data like these indicate how, eventually, psychiatric diagnosis will be based on brain mechanisms, in addition to symptoms,” Leibenluft said.

SOURCE: U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, news release, May 6, 2008

May 1 — Depression in women and stroke in men are critical factors in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, French researchers report.

They analyzed data from almost 7,000 people over the age of 65 in three French cities. None of them had dementia, but about 40 percent had mild cognitive impairment at the start of the study.

They were assessed two and four years later. Of those with mild cognitive impairment at the start of the study, just over 6.5 percent developed dementia over the next four years, about half had no change, and about one-third regained normal levels of cognitive ability.

People with depression, those taking anticholinergic drugs , and those with a variation in the ApoE gene were more likely to progress from mild cognitive impairment to dementia.

The researchers also found that risk factors varied according to gender. Men with mild cognitive impairment were more likely to be overweight, diabetic and to have had a stroke. Men who’d suffered a stroke were almost three times more likely to progress from mild cognitive impairment to dementia.

Women with mild cognitive impairment were more likely to be in poorer general health, disabled, suffering from insomnia, and to have a poor support network. Women with depression were twice as likely to progress from mild cognitive impairment to dementia, while women unable to perform routine daily tasks were 3.5 times more likely to progress to dementia.

Stroke was not a risk factor for women, even though both women and men had similar rates of stroke.

The study was published online in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.

SOURCE: BMJ Specialist Journals, news release, May 1, 2008

April 28 — For those with the most severe depression, a novel therapy may offer new hope.

The treatment is deep brain stimulation , which is used for some people with Parkinson’s disease, and researchers found that it cut depression symptoms by 50 percent for about half of those treated.

“This is a new therapy for patients with severe, intractable depression. There’s a lot of promise for this approach,” said study author Dr. Ali Rezai, director of the Center for Neurological Restoration at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

Deep brain stimulation requires minimally invasive surgery to place electrodes into specific parts of the brain that are believed to be malfunctioning. Once in place, the electrodes emit tiny, adjustable, electrical pulses that block dysfunctional activity in the brain. It’s been used for about 20 years in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. Rezai added that the current group working on DBS and depression, which includes researchers from Brown University and Massachusetts General Hospital as well, has also had success using DBS to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Severe depression occurs in about 10 percent to 20 percent of depression cases, according to Rezai. Antidepressants, and even electroconvulsive therapy, often fail to bring about improvement in depressive symptoms for those with this severe form, leaving them at an increased risk of suicide. The suicide rate in people with major depression may be as high as 15 percent, according to the researchers.

In the current study, 15 people suffering from severe depression for at least five years who weren’t helped by other forms of treatment received DBS implants. Six months later, 47.1 percent had at least a 50 percent reduction in their depressive symptoms, based on a commonly used depression scale. At one year, that number was 50 percent.

Even patients who didn’t meet the 50 percent reduction criteria used as an endpoint in this study still experienced some symptom reduction, according to Rezai, who added that all of the participants said they would undergo DBS again.

The procedure was well-tolerated, and just one patient had a brief seizure in this study.

“This is not for everyday depression, but for those who have failed everything else, hope is on the way,” said Dr. Kathryn Holloway, a professor of neurosurgery at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond. “There are new treatments being developed that are having success where no medication has,” she noted. Other treatments that have shown promise include vagal nerve stimulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation. The problem, she said, is that many insurers won’t cover these procedures for depression.

Rezai was expected to present the findings April 29 at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons annual meeting, in Chicago. He said that his DBS group is now conducting a larger, controlled study.

Another depression study being presented Monday at the meeting found that people on medications for clinical depression who underwent surgery for a malignant brain tumor, called an astrocytoma, had an increased risk of death after the surgery.

Depression prior to surgery upped the odds of death after surgery by about 40 percent, according to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine study. At 12 months after surgery, just 15 percent of those who were depressed before their operation were alive, compared to 41 percent of those who weren’t depressed. At 20 months, none of the depressed patients were still alive, yet 21 percent of the non-depressed were still alive. The authors concluded that effectively treating depression before surgery might help improve outcomes.

SOURCES: Ali Rezai, M.D., the Jane and Lee Seidman Chair in Neurosurgery, and director, Center for Neurological Restoration, Cleveland Clinic, Ohio; Kathryn Holloway, M.D., professor, department of neurosurgery, Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, Richmond, Va.; April 29, 2008, presentation, American Association of Neurological Surgeons annual meeting, Chicago

April 25 — There’s not enough scientific evidence to determine whether omega-3 fatty acid supplements can help treat people with bipolar disorder, say researchers at the University of Oxford in England.

People with bipolar disorder can shift between mania and depression. However, the use of omega-3 supplements to treat bipolar disorder is worthy of further study, since they seem to have no serious side effects, and many experts recommend them for people with heart disease and some immune disorders, said study authors Paul Montgomery and Alex Richardson.

They reviewed five studies that examined the use of omega-3 supplements for bipolar disorder, but only one study of 75 patients had enough data on results for Montgomery and Richardson to analyze.

Patients in that study had less severe depression symptoms while taking the supplements, but there was no change in their mania symptoms.

The review showed there’s not enough scientific evidence to determine how omega-3s affect bipolar disorder, “and what evidence is currently available is of such a varied and oftentimes questionable nature that no reliable conclusions may be drawn,” Montgomery said in a prepared statement.

The review was published in the current issue of the journal The Cochrane Library.

Some recent studies have suggested that omega-3s may be beneficial for other mood disorders such as depression, schizophrenia and personality disorders. It’s not clear how omega-3s work in the body, but they may “play key roles in brain structure and function,” Montgomery said.

Some of the studies considered for the review were funded by companies that make omega-3 supplements. Montgomery and Richardson have worked as consultants to several fatty acid supplement companies.

Patients with psychiatric disorders shouldn’t take omega-3 supplements “in lieu of established psychiatric treatment options,” said Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, head of the nutritional neurochemistry division of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

SOURCE: Center for the Advancement of Health, news release, April 22, 2008

April 17 — The antidepressant Prozac has been shown to restore old brain cells to their more plastic youthful condition in animal experiments, researchers report.

The work not only provides a possible new explanation for the antidepressant activity of the medication but also raises the distant prospect that it could be used to treat other conditions caused by malfunction of brain cells, said study lead author Jose Fernando Maya Vetencourt.

“It suggests potential clinical applications for the drug in different pathologies,” said Vetencourt, a researcher in neurobiology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy. One of them is amblyopia, the “lazy eye” condition in which one eye is weaker than the other, because it was not used enough in early childhood, he said.

It’s much too early to say when, whether or how Prozac, whose generic name is fluoxetine, could be used in such treatments, Vetencourt said. It’s also too early to say whether other members of the chemical family of antidepressants to which Prozac belongs have the same youth-restoring ability, or whether other antidepressants do the same thing, he said.

“All this needs to be validated in animal models,” Vetencourt said. His study colleagues, who included researchers in Finland, have begun to study “the expression of genes which may be correlated to the functional changes,” he said.

The findings were published in the April 17 issue of the journal Science.

Amblyopia was listed as a possible target, because the experiments were aimed at the brain cells governing vision. Vetencourt and his colleagues gave regular doses of Prozac to adult rats whose vision had been impaired by lack of exposure to visual images at a critical period in their early development. Tests showed changes in brain protein expression and electrical signaling typical of younger brain cells and recovery of vision by the animals.

Future experiments will try to determine whether the same treatment will have a similar effect on brain cells governing functions other than vision, Vetencourt said.

Prozac is one of the antidepressant drugs listed as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors , so called because they block the activity of serotonin, a molecule that transmits signals between brain cells. There are a number of other chemical families of antidepressant drugs, also described by their activity affecting brain chemistry — MAO inhibitors, for example.

“There have been discussions about the theory that a cause of depression is lack of growth in the brain,” said Dr. Julio Licinio, chairman of psychiatry at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “It used to be thought that no change could occur in the adult brain. New research has shown that there can be new growth in the brain, so the theory is that depression is caused by lack of new growth.”

The new study “supports that theory in a very interesting way,” Licinio said. “It both shows a potential new treatment for depression and also further supports the idea that antidepressants act because they promote growth in the brain.”

And what applies to Prozac probably is true of other SSRIs and of antidepressants in general, he said. “There have been a lot of other papers showing that other antidepressants have the same property of growth in the brain,” Licinio said.

SOURCES: Jose Fernando Maya Vetencourt, Ph.D., researcher, neurobiology, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy; Julio Licinio, M.D., chairman, psychiatry, Unversity of Miami Miller School of Medicine; April 18, 2008, Science

April 9 — Scrubbing the tub and other forms of housework may clean your house and boost your mood.

In fact, as little as 20 minutes of any kind of physical activity a week helped mental health, although the more vigorous the activity, the greater the benefit, said the authors of a study published online Thursday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

“There’s such a pervasive feeling in this country that, if there’s a problem, there’s always a pill to fix it,” said Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of Women and Heart Disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “This study is just reminding us that it doesn’t take much to actually have an effect even on your mood.”

The physical benefits of exercise are well known: It reduces the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and even some cancers, among other things.

The mental benefits are less clear, although exercise is thought to improve blood flow and reduce inflammation, which have been related to depression and dementia. Exercise might also improve mood by reducing stress levels.

“It’s pretty clear that physical activity does have some kind of positive relationship to good mental health,” said Dr. Jane Ripperger-Suhler, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and a psychiatrist with Scott & White Mental Health Center in Temple. “They [the study authors] are trying to figure out how much you need to do.”

For the new study, almost 20,000 men and women participating in the 1995, 1998 and 2003 Scottish Health Surveys answered questionnaires about physical activity and “psychological distress.”

Daily physical activity of any kind — including housework, gardening, walking, and sports — was associated with a 41 percent lower risk of psychological distress. But sports reduced the risk of mood lows the most — by 33 percent.

And just in case women are thinking this study is a ploy to engage in more housework, think again. The study showed that more sports and overall activity increased your mood even more, but extra mopping and scrubbing didn’t.

“The message is do a little bit of housework and a lot of sports,” Ripperger-Suhler said.

According to the study authors, from University College London, this appears to be the first research to look at different specific activities in relation to mental health. The study wasn’t designed to look at a cause-and-effect relationship, only that a relationship exists.

SOURCES: Suzanne Steinbaum, D.O., director, Women and Heart Disease, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City; Jane Ripperger-Suhler, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science, Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and psychiatrist, Scott & White Mental Health Center, Temple, Texas; April 10, 2008, British Journal of Sports Medicine, online