Antidepressant effects of exercise: a role for the adiponectin-PGC-1α-kynurenine triad?

It is well-recognized that exercise improves mental health, e.g., by decreasing depressive behaviors, improving hippocampal-dependent learning and neurogenesis, and increasing dendritic plasticity. Yet how exercise influences the brain at the molecular level is not clearly understood. Yau et al recently reported that the antidepressant effects of physical exercise are mainly mediated by adiponectin, an adipocyte-secreted hormone ('adipocytokine') with neuroprotective effects at the central nervous system level (Yau et al., 2014). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Physical exercise minimizes the toxic triad for cancer: Physical inactivity, low fitness, and obesity

The so-called toxic triad of factors linked to cancer, namely obesity, poor cardiorespiratory fitness and physical inactivity, increase the risk of cancer and, when cancer is present, worsen its prognosis. Thus, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle have been linked to an elevated cancer risk whereas regular physical exercise and good cardiorespiratory function (CRF) diminish this risk. Despite genetic risk factors, there is evidence to show that some lifestyle modifications are capable of reducing the incidence of cancer and its associated morbidity and mortality. Regular physical exercise targeted at maintaining body weight within healthy limits and improving CRF will reduce a person's cancer risk and, once diagnosed, will also improve its prognosis, reducing mortality and the risk of disease recurrence through similar effects. In this review, we describe how physical activity can be used as a pleiotropic, coadjuvant tool to minimize the toxic triad for cancer and update the mechanisms proposed to date for the effects observed.