What effect does exercise really have on depression?

We are often told exercise is good for boosting your mood, but a new Cochrane review has looked at what the evidence says about how much difference exercise can really make when treating depression. Many patients with chronic conditions fail to take medications as prescribed. We discuss a novel pill casing that can send a signal once it has been broken down in the stomach. Prof Giovanni Traverso, gastroenterologist and director of the Laboratory for Translational Engineering at MIT, explains how it works. A year on from the USAID freeze, global health journalist Andrew Green unpicks America’s radically different influence on world health today. In Malawi’s townships, many families can no longer afford charcoal or gas. Instead, they turn to burning plastic waste as cooking fuel. This keeps food on the table but fills kitchens and markets with toxic smoke, contributing to respiratory illness, pregnancy complications, and environmental damage. We hear from our reporter, Carrim Mpaweni. And we look at auto-brewery syndrome as researchers search for why some people’s gut microbes produce high alcohol levels. Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Hannah Robins Assistant producers: Jonathan Blackwell and Anna Charalambou

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What effect does exercise really have on depression? is an episode from Health Check by BBC.

This episode is 26:28 long.

This episode was published on Jan 14, 2026.

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