Research may support heat-based treatment to promote self-cooling as a new treatment.
Recent research from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has shown a significant link between depression and body temperature, offering new perspectives on possible treatment methods.
Over the course of seven months, data from 20,880 people in 106 countries was collected and examined for the study. According to the research, some people may have a higher body temperature than others when they are depressed.
The study is among the largest in this field, as previous research was sometimes limited by small sample sizes. The association found may pave the way for more research, even if the UCSF research does not convincingly demonstrate that depression causes increased body temperature, or that depression causes increased body temperature.
The findings shed light on how a new treatment method for depression might work. said Ashley MasonPhD, lead author of the study and associate professor of psychiatry at the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. A small number of existing causal studies have found that using hot tubs or saunas can reduce depression, possibly by prompting the body to cool itself, for example by sweating.
“Ironically, warming people up can actually lead to a reduction in body temperature that lasts longer than simply cooling people down directly, such as with an ice bath,” Mason saidwho is also a clinical psychologist at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Health. “What if we could monitor the body temperature of people with depression to properly time heat-based treatments?”
“To our knowledge, this is the largest study to date examining the association between body temperature, measured using both self-report methods and wearable sensors, and depressive symptoms in a geographically broad sample,” Mason said. “Given the rising rates of depression in the United States, we are excited about the potential of a new treatment option.”
This new connection could result in simple ways to treat the symptoms of depression. Treatment for millions of people around the world could change if more research confirms the idea that cooling therapy can help people suffering from depression.