Toward Exercise as Medicine for Adolescents With Bipolar Disorder

This study seeks to bridge the knowledge-to-action gap regarding "exercise as medicine" for adolescents with bipolar disorder (BD). Numerous review articles attest to widespread recognition that aerobic exercise (AE) could be an important part of the treatment armamentarium to reduce the symptom burden, neurocognitive dysfunction, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, improve quality of life (QOL), and even engage core biological treatment targets in BD. It appears self-evident that treatment for adolescents with BD, who experience high symptom burden, neurocognitive deficits, and increased CVD risk, should target their aerobic fitness (AF), yet there is not a single study in the world literature on this topic. Remarkably, there have been no intervention studies that specifically focus on aerobic exercise or that directly evaluate changes in AF in any BD age group. Overall physical activity is important, but focusing on AF offers unique potential benefits in terms of simultaneously ameliorating and enhancing mood, neurocognition, and cardiovascular health. Importantly, a recent American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Statement confirms that it is the most aerobically unfit for whom even modest improvements in AF offer the greatest relative benefits. Nonetheless, important questions arise as to whether and how AF in this population can be improved. There is a clear and unmet need for effective behavior change counseling (BCC) interventions targeting AF that are tailored to the unique needs of adolescents with BD.