American researchers have discovered a surprising link between body temperature and depressive disorder.
- In the study, as the severity of depressive symptoms increased, people had higher body temperatures.
- Among participants whose temperature fluctuated less over a 24-hour period, depression scores were higher.
- According to the authors, it could be beneficial for mental health to reduce the body temperature of depressed patients through heat treatment.
“Associations between altered body temperature and depression have been reported in small samples. This warrants further examination of potential mechanisms of depressive disorder related to body temperature regulation,” said scientists at the University of California, San Diego.
In a recent study, they tested the hypotheses that greater severity of depressive symptoms is associated with either higher body temperature, smaller differences between waking and sleeping body temperature, or lower body temperature range for 24 hours.
For the purposes of the work, the team analyzed data from more than 20,000 people from 106 countries. During a seven-month follow-up, participants wore a device measuring body temperature, and were also asked to report their body temperature and depression symptoms daily.
Depressed people have higher body temperature
According to the results, published in the journal Scientific Reports, higher self-reported and device-assessed body temperatures while awake were associated with greater severity of depressive symptoms. Body temperature data also showed a trend toward higher depression scores among volunteers whose temperatures fluctuated less over a 24-hour period.
At this time, the authors do not know whether depression increases body temperature or whether a higher temperature causes the disorder. The results also do not indicate whether the higher body temperature observed in depressed people reflects a decreased ability to cool themselves, increased heat production from metabolic processes, or a combination of both.
Depression: heat treatment to stimulate self-cooling
“Warming people can cause a drop in body temperature that lasts longer than just direct cooling, for example in an ice bath. What if we could track the body temperature of people with depression to plan treatments with heat? (…) Given the increasing rates of depression in the United States, we are excited about the possibilities of a new treatment avenue”, concluded Ashley E. Masonlead author of the study.
