Recent research from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has revealed a significant relationship between depression and body temperature, offering new perspectives on potential treatment approaches.
Over the course of seven months, data from 20,880 people from 106 countries was collected and examined for the study. According to research, some people’s body temperature may be higher than others when they are depressed.
This study is one of the largest to examine this area as earlier research was sometimes hampered by small sample sizes. The found relationship could pave the way for more research, even though the UCSF study does not conclusively demonstrate that depression causes increased body temperature or that depression causes increased body temperature.
The findings shed light on how a novel depression treatment method may work, said Ashley Mason, PhD, lead author of the study and associate professor of psychiatry at the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. A small group of existing, causal studies have found that hot tub or sauna use may reduce depression, possibly by causing the body to cool itself, for example, through sweating.
“The irony is that warming people can actually lower body temperature again, which can keep people warm longer than cooling them directly through an ice bath,” said Mason, a clinical psychologist at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Health. Lasts for a while.” “What if we could track the body temperatures of people with depression well over the time course of heat-based treatments?”
Mason said, “To our knowledge, this is the first study to date to assess the association between body temperature and depressive symptoms in a geographically broad sample using both self-report methods and wearable sensors. It’s a big study.” “Given the rising rates of depression in the United States, we are excited by the possibilities of a new path to treatment.”
This new relationship may result in easier ways to treat symptoms of depression. If more research confirms the notion that cooling therapy can help people with depression it could change the treatment of millions of people around the world.
