2024-02-18 05:00:07
The fight against depression, an illness affecting millions of people around the world, has gained new momentum with a recent study led by a team of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco. This study, recently published in Scientific Reports, reveals an intriguing link between body temperature and depression, opening new treatment perspectives for this disease.
Over seven months, researchers analyzed data from more than 20,000 participants from 106 different countries. These participants were fitted with wearable devices that measured their body temperature and also reported their depression symptoms daily. The results were striking: As the severity of depressive symptoms increased, participants had higher body temperatures.
The study cannot determine with certainty whether it is depression that raises body temperature, or whether it is the other way around. Researchers speculate that this correlation may be related to a decrease in the body’s ability to cool itself during depression, coupled with increased heat production through metabolism.
The results of this study could have a significant impact on the treatment of this mental illness. Previous research has already shown that treatment methods based on regulating body temperature, such as hot tubs and saunas, can alleviate symptoms of depression. Indeed, due to the self-cooling caused by perspiration, the body is surprisingly able to cool itself more effectively when it is subjected to external heat than when it is bathed in ice.
This new finding suggests that monitoring the body temperature of depressed patients could enable more effective personalization of heat-based treatments. However, further studies will be needed to fully understand the mechanisms underlying this correlation and to develop more targeted therapeutic interventions.
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