A pill for everything?

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of patients with dementia or mild cognitive impairment demonstrated better cognitive scores after 6 to 12 months of exercise compared to sedentary controls. A RCT of older adults found that 1 year of aerobic exercise was associated with significantly larger hippocampal volumes and better spatial memory; and ‘other RCTs in seniors documented attenuation of age-related gray matter volume loss with aerobic exercise’ (Ahlskog et al, 2011). Exercise, the authors concluded, ‘should not be overlooked as an important therapeutic strategy’ (Ahlskog et al, 2011).

In a Spanish study of 1709 adults (mean age 72 years), Navarette-Villanueva et al (2021) highlighted ‘the importance of fitness in older adults, as it is at least as important as the avoidance of accumulation of excess fat with respect to the consumption of a smaller number of medicines.’

And most recently, Ede (2024) addresses the challenge of drug medication treatment resistance among those with mental illness by investigating ‘metabolic psychiatry’ a term coined by Stanford University psychiatrist Dr Shebani Sethi, who defines it as ‘a new subspecialty focused on targeting and treating metabolic dysfunction to improve mental health outcomes’ (Ede, 2024).