title: "I Want a New Drug": Exercise as a Pharmacological Therapy.
abstract: Skeletal muscle can be considered a secretory organ that produces myokines and other humoral factors having autocrine-, paracrine-, and endocrine-like signaling effects throughout the body. Exercise has such profound pharmacological and physiological effects that it should be considered a drug therapy. Exercise has documented benefits for preventing or treating many physical and mental disorders or their sequelae, and it has a potential role in managing adverse effects associated with drug therapies. If exercise were a drug evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, it might be approved for a large number of therapeutic indications. Exercise can be appropriately prescribed for virtually anyone for primary, secondary, or tertiary prevention of many mental and physical disorders.
authors.forename: Robert H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Howland
mesh_terms: D015444:Exercise / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000451:nursing*; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000502:physiology; D055656:Prescriptions / Q000451:nursing; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing; D011619:Psychotropic Drugs / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D011619:Psychotropic Drugs