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People with depression have higher body temperatures, suggesting there may be a mental health benefit to lowering the temperature of people with the disorder, according to a new study led by UC San Francisco.
The study, published today in Scientific reports, does not indicate whether depression increases body temperature or whether higher temperature causes depression. It is also unclear whether the higher body temperature seen in people with depression reflects a decreased ability to cool themselves, increased heat production from metabolic processes, or a combination of both.
Researchers analyzed data from more than 20,000 international participants who wore a device that measured body temperature, and also reported their body temperature and depression symptoms daily. The seven-month study began in early 2020 and included data from 106 countries.
The results showed that as the severity of depression symptoms increased, participants had higher body temperatures. The body temperature data also showed a trend toward higher depression scores among people whose temperatures fluctuated less over a 24-hour period, but this finding was not significant.
The findings shed light on how a new method of treating depression might work, said Ashley Mason, Ph.D., lead author of the study and associate professor of psychiatry at the Weill Institute for Neuroscience at UCSF. A small number of existing causal studies have shown that using hot tubs or saunas can reduce depression, possibly by prompting the body to cool itself, such as through sweating.
Self-reported average body temperature by time of day. The figure depicts the expected diurnal pattern of lowest self-reported body temperatures reported early in the morning and higher self-reported body temperatures during the day. Note. The blue line represents self-reported average body temperature (right Y axis) by time of day; blue shading indicates the standard error of the mean. Red shading indicates the number of responses (left Y axis) provided each minute (X axis). Credit: Scientific reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-51567-w
“Ironically, warming people can actually cause a drop in body temperature that lasts longer than just cooling people directly, such as through an ice bath,” said Mason, who is also a clinical psychologist at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Health. “What if we could track the body temperature of people suffering from depression to properly plan heat treatments?”
“To our knowledge, this is the largest study to date examining the association between body temperature (assessed using self-report methods and wearable sensors) and depressive symptoms in a sample geographically broad,” Mason added. “Given the increasing rates of depression in the United States, we are excited about the possibilities of a new treatment avenue.”
More information:
Ashley E. Mason et al, Elevated body temperature is associated with depressive symptoms: results from the TemPredict study, Scientific reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-51567-w
Provided by University of California, San Francisco
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