Key result
12-day HIIT substantially improves panic disorder severity and endurance performance.
Why the study?
It is uncertain if high-intensity interval training is applicable and effective in patients with panic disorder due to their vulnerability to exercise adverse effects.
Does high-intensity interval training improve symptoms and endurance in patients with panic disorder?
Does high-intensity interval training improve symptoms and endurance in patients with panic disorder?
A 12-day HIIT program was well tolerated and associated with improvements in panic disorder severity, depression, and endurance performance in a small cohort of patients.
HIIT may be feasible in panic disorder; hypothesis-generating for symptom benefits, needing randomized trials.
High-intensity interval training (HIIT) may produce strong physiological but also psychological effects within a short period. However, it is questionable if this type of training is applicable and effective in patients with panic disorder (PD) because they are more vulnerable to the adverse effects of exercise. Twelve PD patients performed a 12-day HIIT trial. Every second day, patients performed 10 high-intensive 1-minute intervals at 77% to 95% of their maximum heart rate separated by 1-minute intervals with moderate to low intensity. All patients completed the 12-day training period. PD severity, agoraphobia, depression, general disorder severity, and endurance performance improved substantially with moderate to large effects sizes. Moreover, the increase in endurance performance was correlated with the reduction of depression and agoraphobia. HIIT was well tolerated by patients with PD and may induce rapid and strong therapeutic effects. A randomized controlled clinical trial is needed to verify our findings.
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Plag et al. (2019) studied Panic disorder (n=12). High-intensity interval training (HIIT) was evaluated on PD severity, agoraphobia, depression, general disorder severity, and endurance performance. A 12-day high-intensity interval training program was well tolerated by 12 patients with panic disorder, substantially improving PD severity, agoraphobia, depression, and endurance performance.
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