Aerobic exercise in severe mental illness: requirements from the perspective of sports medicine.

Major depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia are severe mental illnesses. Despite receiving psychopharmacological and psychosocial treatments, about half of patients develop a chronic course with residual cognitive and negative symptoms and have a high risk for cardiovascular disease and reduced life expectancy. Therefore, add-on innovative treatment approaches are needed to improve outcome. Aerobic exercise interventions have been shown to improve global functioning, cognition, and negative and depressive symptoms in these patients. The basic mechanism of these exercise-related changes has been reported to be improved brain plasticity, e.g., increased volume of disease-related brain regions such as the hippocampus. The optimal type, duration, and frequency of exercise have not yet been determined and need to be addressed in supervised physical exercise studies. Because of the low physical activity levels, lack of drive related to negative and depressive symptoms, and high prevalence of cardiovascular comorbidities in patients with severe mental illness, besides aiming to improve symptoms of mental illness, exercise interventions should also aim to increase cardiorespiratory fitness, which they should comprehensively assess by direct measurements of maximal oxygen uptake. Based on the recommendations for developing cardiorespiratory fitness by the American College of Sports Medicine, 150 min moderate-intensity training per week or vigorous-intensity exercise training for 75 min per week are appropriate. Most studies have had relatively short intervention periods, so future studies should focus on long-term adherence to exercise by implementing motivational strategies supported by telemedicine and by identifying and targeting typical barriers to exercise in this patient population.

Efficacy Over Time With Drug-Eluting Stents in Saphenous Vein Graft Lesions.

BACKGROUND: In the ISAR-CABG (Is Drug-Eluting-Stenting Associated with Improved Results in Coronary Artery Bypass Grafts?) trial, clinical outcomes at 1 year in patients undergoing treatment of saphenous vein graft lesions were superior with drug-eluting stents (DES) versus bare-metal stents. OBJECTIVES: The authors compared outcomes between treatment groups at 5 years. METHODS: Patients were randomized (1:1:1:3) to receive DES (either permanent-polymer paclitaxel-eluting stents, permanent-polymer sirolimus-eluting stents, or biodegradable-polymer sirolimus-eluting stents) or bare-metal stents. The primary endpoint was the combined incidence of death, myocardial infarction (MI), or target lesion revascularization (TLR). Secondary endpoints were the composite of death or MI and TLR. RESULTS: A total of 610 patients were allocated to treatment with DES (n = 303) or bare-metal stents (n = 307). At 5 years, the primary endpoint occurred in 159 (55.5%) versus 157 (53.6%) patients in the DES and bare-metal stent groups, respectively (hazard ratio [HR]: 0.98; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.79 to 1.23; p = 0.89). There was interaction between treatment effect and time (pinteraction = 0.005), with a lower event rate in the DES group at 1 year (HR: 0.64; 95% CI: 0.44 to 0.94; p = 0.02) but a numerically higher rate between 1 and 5 years (HR: 1.24; 95% CI: 0.94 to 1.63; p = 0.13). Death or MI occurred in 93 (32.8%) versus 108 (36.6%) patients, respectively (HR: 0.85; 95% CI: 0.64 to 1.12; p = 0.24), without significant interaction between treatment effect and time (pinteraction = 0.57). TLR occurred in 84 (33.1%) versus 69 (25.5%) patients in the DES and bare-metal stent groups, respectively (HR: 1.20; 95% CI: 0.87 to 1.64; p = 0.27). There was interaction between treatment effect and time (pinteraction <0.001): TLR was significantly lower in the DES group at 1 year (HR: 0.49; 95% CI: 0.28 to 0.86; p = 0.01) but significantly higher thereafter (HR: 2.02; 95% CI: 1.32 to 3.08; p = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: In patients undergoing treatment of saphenous vein graft lesions, the advantage of DES over bare-metal stents demonstrated at 1 year was lost at 5 years due to higher attrition of efficacy in the DES group. (Efficacy Study of Drug-Eluting and Bare Metal Stents in Bypass Graft Lesions [ISAR-CABG]; NCT00611910).