Private MD News

Is physical activity more effective than prescription medication?

Category: Heart Health and Cholesterol

A new study showed that exercise can be as effective as prescription medication at treating some of the leading causes of death in the United States. The results, published in the British Medical Journal, question whether our country's health care system is too focused on medication as treatment and not promoting physical activity enough.

The comparative study was conducted by Huseyin Naci, London School of Economics and Political Science graduate student, and John Ioannidis, M.D., director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center at the Stanford University School of Medicine. They wanted to research how well exercise and prescription drugs reduced deaths among people who had been previously diagnosed with one of four different medical conditions: diabetes, stroke, chronic heart failure or heart disease.

Very few researchers have compared the effectiveness of medication and exercise, yet comparative effectiveness studies are important parts of pharmaceutical research. Naci and Ioannidis compiled data from 305 medical experiments that revolved around one of the four conditions they were researching. What they discovered was that out of all the studies, only 57 examined exercise as a method of treatment.

Using these numbers, the two researchers cross-referenced results from cases where participants were either prescribed medication, put on strict exercise regimens, or both. Typically, a prescribed exercise routine would include aerobic activity and some form of weight-training. The results of their cross-referencing were revelatory: exercise consistently showed similar results to medication when it came to treating life-threatening conditions.

Exercise as beneficial as medicine
"When compared head to head in network meta-analyses, all interventions were not different beyond chance. Our results suggest that exercise can be quite potent in treating heart disease and the other conditions," explained Ioannidis.

People with heart disease and diabetes who were prescribed exercise instead of traditional medication had the same risk of dying or surviving as patients on prescription medication. Interestingly, patients who had suffered strokes had a reduced risk of dying when they were made to exercise compared to those taking drugs. However, it was noted that drugs were more effective than exercise when it came to patients diagnosed with chronic heart failure.

The findings also highlight how infrequently exercise is considered as an alternative to prescription medication.

"We are not suggesting that anyone stop taking their medications. But maybe people could think long and hard about their lifestyles and talk to their doctors about whether exercise could and should be incorporated into their care," concluded Naci.

Without further lab tests and comparative studies, researchers cannot confidently say that exercise is better than medication. Individuals who feel they are at risk of one of these four conditions should look into lab tests online to determine their risk levels.