Understanding prognostic benefits of exercise and antidepressant therapy for persons with depression and heart disease: the UPBEAT study – rationale, design, and methodological issues

Background Depression is relatively common in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) and is associated with worse prognosis. Recently there has been interest in evaluating the impact of treating depression on clinical outcomes. Anti-depressant medications have been shown to be safe and efficacious for many patients; exercise also may be effective for treating depression and may also improve cardiopulmonary functioning. However, methodological limitations of previous studies have raised questions about the value of exercise, and no study has compared the effects of exercise with standard anti-depressant medication in depressed cardiac patients.Purpose UPBEAT is a randomized clinical trial (RCT) funded by NHLBI to evaluate the effects of sertraline or exercise compared to placebo on depression and biomarkers of cardiovascular risk in patients with CHD and elevated depressive symptoms.Methods The UPBEAT study includes 200 stable CHD patients with scores on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) ≥9 randomize...