Regular exercise could help to stave off depression in older men, according to new research published by Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism.

Exercise has long been mooted as a potential treatment for older people who are suffering from bouts of the black dog, with research showing that physical activity helps to increase tryptophan levels, which in turn is often paralleled by an increase in serotonin activity.

Serotonin serves as a neurotransmitter, which is thought to lead to elevated mood, however one main cause of depression in older people is the brain’s decreasing ability to transmit serotonin. Therefore bursts of exercise can prove effective to help boost how people are feeling in the short term.

Little research has been done to explore what regular exercise can do for people’s long-term dispositions. One potential pitfall could be that becoming accustomed to exercise might decrease the impact of the short-term high people get from exercise.

However, this latest study has proven that regular exercise could help to sustain good moods and keep older men from falling into depressive states, according to the findings.

As part of the study, experts gathered sixteen men with an average age of 64 and asked them to do a one-hour workout at a moderate intensity level. Results showed that, as per past research, their tryptophan levels increased.

To prove that the men had not become immune to the boosts they were receiving from the exercise, the researchers sent them away for sixteen weeks and asked them to become regular aerobic exercisers.

They then returned to take part in the same one-hour exercise routine, where researchers discovered that the men still received an increase in tryptophan.

Growing amounts of research are adding weight to the idea that exercise can be used to prevent and treat a number of troublesome diseases and disorders, ranging from certain cancers through to mental illness.

One study has found that exercise could help to prevent the development of breast cancer in post-menopausal women, while another discovered that physical activity may improve the cognitive function of the brain for people who suffer from obesity.

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