BACKGROUND: Regular physical activity promotes physical and mental health. Psychiatric patients are prone to a sedentary lifestyle, and accumulating evidence has identified physical activity as a supplemental treatment option. METHODS: This prospective, randomized, crossover study evaluated the effects of hiking in high-risk suicidal patients (n = 20) who performed 9 weeks of hiking (2 to 3 hikes/week, 2 to 2.5 hours each) and a 9-week control period. RESULTS: All patients participated in the required 2 hikes per week and thus showed a compliance of 100%. Regular hiking led to significant improvement in maximal exercise capacity (hiking period +18.82 +/- 0.99 watt, p < 0.001; control period: p = 0.134) and in aerobic capability at 70% of the individual heart rate reserve (hiking period +8.47 +/- 2.22 watt; p = 0.010; control period: p = 0.183). Cytokines, associated previously with suicidality (tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin-6, S100), remained essentially unchanged. CONCLUSIONS: Hiking is an effective and safe form of exercise training even in high-risk suicidal patients. It leads to a significant improvement in maximal exercise capacity and aerobic capability without concomitant deterioration of markers of suicidality. Offering this popular mode of exercise to these patients might help them to adopt a physically more active lifestyle.
With permission from Excerpta Medica Inc.

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