EXPLORING THE ADJUVANT EFFECT OF PHYSICAL EXERCISE IN PATIENTS WITH MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER: AN OPEN RANDOMIZED CLINICAL TRIAL
Physical Exercise, Sleep, Biomarkers, Major Depression.
Major Depression Disorder (MDD) affects approximately 350 million people worldwide, making it the second most prevalent mental disorder and a leading cause of disability. It leads to significant damage in the behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and physiological domains, as well as social and financial market losses. Despite the progress made in developing antidepressants, they still demonstrate low effectiveness and are associated with undesirable side effects. Consequently, the study of MDD has gained strategic importance within health policies, with efforts focused on finding complementary treatments to improve efficacy and reduce side effects associated with pharmacological interventions. Complementary therapies (CT), which have shown promising evidence in managing MDD symptoms, are now being explored. However, there is a lack of studies investigating the neurobiological responses triggered by CT. Additionally, due to avolition and anhedonia experienced by MDD patients, adherence to CT may be unsatisfactory. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate, in an innovative way in the Brazilian population, a therapeutic protocol of group and home-based exercise in patients with MDD, guided by the rating perceived exertion and the affective scale, as predictors of adherence, by a controlled, randomized and open longitudinal clinical study, to investigate the adjuvant antidepressant properties of physical exercise, assessing through depressive symptoms, anxiety, cardiovascular parameters, sleep quality and molecular biomarkers and how these parameters relate to the severity of the disorder before treatment.