Are Body Temperature and Depression Linked? Science Says, Yes.
People with depression have higher body temperatures, suggesting there could be a mental health benefit to lowering the temperatures of those with depression.
Higher body temperature is associated with depression, but severe depression will lower it to room temperature.
This is such an odd comment for people to upvote. The human body runs around 37c / 98.6f. A “room temperature” body is literally a corpse.
(Edit: I’ll leave the comment. But yes, I’m a moron.)
Oof.
Oh. So, thermodynamically speaking, severe depression can be classified as an abnormally high heat dissipation coefficient. Solution should be easy.. Insulation. dusts off hands Physics saves the day again! Somebody tell some techbros and Peter Thiel. I smell a medtech startup!
I hate articles like this. Implying some sorta of causal relationship with any and all scientific papers that have a correlation between two properties. You can't write that the paper "suggests" lowering body temps would improve depression when the paper only finds a correlation between the two.
People with expensive well worn running shoes have better cardiovascular health. So let's give people well worn running shoes to improve their health.
I like this comparison because it makes me think of a company that is administering a medical trial type program to improve cardiovascular health — I'm imagining a "farm" type place, where undergrads are on treadmills, taking new, expensive running shoes and running in them until they're "well-worn". It's very silly, and I thank you for this mental image.
It's obviously causation. That's why there are so many depressed people in Hawaii and so few in Alaska.
Wait ..
Aah, the mandatory "correlation is not causation" remark ;)
I've read depression is also linked to chronic low level inflammation, and inflammation causes heat, I wonder if that's the reason?
Anecdotally I suffer with chronic depression and always seem warm.
Most likely, yes. Depression is also correlated with lower immune function, so I'd guess that's one of the ways it tries to compensate.
So if you go back through records they found that old recordings had a higher body temp. The old explanation was the instruments were off calibration. But a new idea is that body temperatures used to be higher, with the idea that with better hygiene and better food supply our gut microbiome is not as active. I wonder how that all squares with this. Anyway, I hope this current finding is not focused on treating what's likely a symptom and not the cause.
This better not make people dismiss my depression because I run cold...
No, they will continue to do that because it makes them uncomfortable.
Science can talk?
Wait, so if my girlfriend says I'm hot that doesn't mean what I originally thought?
Ehh…
Interesting, but since the study was primarily a tag along survey to detecting COVID, I wonder if they controlled for folks who were on SSRI’s, and if the distribution of participants was across the equator, or primarily in areas of the world that experienced summer during the survey period (March-Oct, 2020).
It’s known that SSRI’s contribute to a heat intolerance that is typically more noticeable during summer months. It’s described as feeling warmer, and is accompanied (sometimes) by decreased production of sweat.
Heat Intolerance and Psychiatric Medications - Psychology Today
That’s not to say there may be some (or a lot, even) merit to this study, but I’m curious about those two issues - if they had been controlled for.
I'm cold and sad. This is bullshit.
Also, I live near the research hospital. Our neighborhood is freezing and foggy, and the med students don't bundle up. I think this data is biased bc the only warm people are at home all the time, hence statistically high per capita depression. /s
Most scientific findings are based on averages, and so a generalization will not likely apply to all people
The last decade has seen a particularly significant increase in depression in the United States, with prevalence rates increasing by 33% between 2013 and 2016, with the largest increase among youth and young adults
Back in the day we used to try to address depression with various talk therapies and group therapies. This wasn't perfect and was also relatively expensive but at least it offered a sense of connection and tried to tie people back into society.
Now it's all about pills, which are a huge money-spinner and are cheaper than talk therapy. When things make money you tend to see an increase in them.