Fitness helps you fight: Drug Dependence

Research recently conducted by Davidson College demonstrates that the benefits of regular exercise include lowered dependency to become addicted to illegal drugs.

According to Associate Professor Mark A. Smith, the results show that exercise can help prevent drug addiction. Smith said his research gave scientific validity for a long-standing suspicion among drug abuse researchers that exercise plays a role in helping people avoid and overcome drug addiction.


The research is based upon two years of study with three Davidson student research assistants. They compared the tendency to self-administer cocaine between two groups of rates. One group of rates lived in laboratory cages equipped with running wheel, and the other group lived in a standard cage with no wheel. During six weeks, the rats in the wheel cages increased their running to about 10 kilometers per day, while those without wheels not no exercise at all.

At the end of the six weeks, all the rats were connected to infusion pump that would provide a dose of cocaine if they pushed a lever in their cage. However the number of pushes necessary to deliver a dose increased geometrically for each subsequent does.

The researchers found that fit rats abandoned the task quicker than those who were sedentary. Those rates who ran the farthest abandoned the task at a lower number of pushes than their fellow exercising rates.

According to Smith exercise works because both exercise and illicit drugs prompt the same release in the brain of the euphoria-inducing protein dopamine. Long-term exercise alters the number of dopamine receptors in the brain, meaning the drugs have less of a euphoric effect.


Smith hopes by following up on this research with whether or not exercise can help mitigate the effects of relapse to drug use among rates.