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Though there is no hard evidence, some jogger-doctors believe that running cures mental problems by changing the chemical composition of the body. A.H. Ismail, professor of physical education at Purdue University, reports "significant relationships" between changes in certain hormone levels of joggers and improvements in emotional stability. Some critics think the joggers he studied, a group of out-of-shape professors, could have felt better simply because they were getting away from their desks for a change, but Ismail doubts that theory. Psychiatrist Brown thinks running fights depression by inducing chemical changes in the brain, and he is now working with researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health to test the theory.
But even convinced jogger-doctors are reserving final judgment on the running cure. Psychiatrist Jerome Katz of the Menninger Foundation says jogging makes patients more talkative and helps a bit with depression, but cautions that "the enthusiastic claims of instant cures of depression have to be evaluated with a great deal of salt." In the common-sense view, all exercise is likely to bring a tem porary feeling of well-being and a distraction from personal woes. Clinton Cox, a reporter for the New York Daily News, thinks he knows the real secret of the jogging cure. Says he: "It's almost impossible to worry about your job or other such mundane pursuits when your body is in total agony."