Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature
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A massive document saying nothing of use.
Amongst others; Oura Health Oy (#134650) also provided funding for this work.
For these daily self-reported temperature assessments, participants used their own thermometers (which were not provided by the study, and which may have been of any brand), and we did not ask participants to report the type of thermometer used or the method of body temperature assessment. Not good research criteria!
The PROMIS T-scores: They appear to have an 8 question questionaire for every illness on the planet.
https://www.healthmeasures.net/score-and-interpret/interpret...
Can anyone really do a diagnostic test with just 8 questions and conclude that someone has a mental illness. Absolutely not! Yet they have us believe that you can.
Psychiatrists have been using short questionaires for years to assess anxiety and depression and most forms of mental illness. None of them work or are accurate.
The study not only states that body temperature is higher, but also the mechanism by which this occurs which is related to 5-HTTLPR deletion.
Depression is considered an inflammation-associated disorder, and improper/constant activation of cross-reactive inflammation pathways eats into mitochondrial energy production (The Powerhouse Of the Cell(tm)), which means energy that would go keeping you warm isn't.
The body, for some adaptive reason (and presumably a good one), doesn't turn up energy production to compensate.
Covid is absolutely wild.
I feel we are shoving people into crowded public spaces because we currently have no practical alternative
I had PVCs, but only at rest. Completely disappeared with the slightest walk on the treadmill test.
Either Omnicron or a minor cold kicked all this off, plus 2 months of painful heart inflammation that couldn’t be positively diagnosed. During the inflammation, caffeine caused delayed discomfort.
The PVCs caused a lot of discomfort while resting/sleeping and were somehow worse long after exercise.
Cardiac ablation got rid of them.
That is, you wouldn’t tell someone that suffered complex trauma over a long period of time that they have “chronic inflammation” and tell them to take Vitamin D. However, an explanation of chronic inflammation may be more applicable to someone that doesn’t have that history.
To add to this, silos of medical specialties and their associated distinct ways of thinking will impede novel treatments. Any well-paid specialized professional will have a hard time breaking out of their ways of thinking.
It makes me wonder if many things might be the other way around. That there's clear physical reasons for many mental or psychological problems.
It's just always easier to claim something is psychogenic when you don't know the cause with hopes that it's enough to placebo the patient to calm down about anything they might be feeling.
When someone, especially a professional claims that whatever you are feeling is psychogenic it feels like a dismissal of what you are feeling. A person is feeling something wrong and essentially they are being told that you are imagining it, and it actually does not matter. Which in a way makes it worse, because not only you are feeling it, you are also being told you are crazy to feel it.
And that there's no hope or solution for it, because you are imagining it, therefore it can't be solved, or you don't know how to solve it in the first place.
Sometimes the cause or treatment might be physical, sometimes it might be mental, because the mental intervention might be just as effective, even with our current poor understanding of the brain.
I don’t know, the reverse that mental diseases don’t cause physical symptoms seems harder to believe.
It all just shows that we don’t take mental health seriously enough.
I've been able to manage my pains by a combination of lots of aerobic exercising and yoga/stretching type workouts. I'm not in perfect condition yet, but things are certainly better.
I wonder if all or most of depression/anxiety on people is just some physical problem/pain preventing them from sleeping well and bad sleep causing them to feel like shit.
I wouldn't go as far as to say "most" depression/anxiety is caused by lack of sleep, but by now I am certain that a huge amount of undiagnosed or untreated health issues are caused by stuff like inflammation states, lack of sleep, digestion not doing its thing, muscles doing something wrong, and often more than one of these.
I hope you feel better!
https://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/somatopsychic
It seems to me that linguistically we talk about "feeling" physically and also "feeling" emotionally because those two things are deeply intertwined.
In his book, Dr. Chris Palmer says “Mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain”.
That doesn’t imply that depression is a simple result of inflammatory processes, it just shows that depression is a cross-cutting alteration to the body’s function on many levels.
In some cases, depression does result from physical processes in the body going wrong. However, I think too many people try to pin mental health conditions on underlying physical problems that don’t exist. It’s very common for people to want to explain away their depression rather than accept that mental health treatment is the way forward.
When I’m in a depressive state I’m generally eating garbage food, drinking a lot, and not sleeping much (staying up late, but still needing to get up for work). All of this is going to lead to a lot of inflammation and other negative physiological outcomes.
I’m dealing with this right now. I have mild chest pain, and have for weeks. This has happened before, cleaning up my diet, even just for a few days, made it go away.
It’s somewhat a chicken and egg problem to fix though. Mentally, things suck, so I want to keep doing what I’m doing, which causes physical discomfort. Overriding the desire to eat and drink the bad stuff, through sheer force of will, will ultimately alleviate the physical issues, and at the same time clear my my head to some degree… at least until something else pushes me over the edge. When I get pushed back into it, it’s normally just looking for a mental escape from discomfort. If I simply went to sleep instead, I’d probably be all good. I say simply, but that’s always been the hard part for me.
Like, you wouldn’t be surprised that a panic attack causes an actual hormonal response, that will actually cause the heart rate to jump, etc. Why are we surprised that depression causes other symptoms?
Also, it is well documented that when the husband/wife in an elderly couple passes, the other often follows them. Also, will of living greatly corresponds to survival in hospitalized elderly.
it wouldn't be the first disorder where after years of "it's psychological, there is no underlaying physical issue" it turns out that there is an underlying physical problem, see the history of gastric ulcers
Depression seems to be the second type, so I'm not sure it makes sense to talk about that sort of discovery. It seems self evident to me that sometimes depression will be caused by inflammation. Other times it'll be caused by other things. Brains are delicate self modifying machines, they can go haywire from pretty much anything and nothing. We can only find that some factors were underweighted or overweighted by the medical community under some circumstances. Depending on what definition of "depression" gets used.
I've been tracking food for a while (elimination diet works for my depression), and the days leading up to the attack, I had some mixed foods, tsatziki and some curry sauce where the sauce tasted weird. AND I ate kinda low fat the last few days. Also no doctor could tell me how that is connected, they just try to put me on statins. Probably lean mass hyper responder, no proof though.
Within the keto community low body temperature was mentioned a few times, some of them take crazy amounts of iodine. Not sure I want to do that.
been collecting for a while https://github.com/cutestuff/FoodDepressionConundrum/blob/ma...
> my face starts feeling cold, including teeth and hard palate. So I measured and it was 33 c°, told a few doctors and got no response
I read that as they measured the temperature of their face. Then, 33°C isn’t outside normal range.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_temperature: “Normal human skin temperature on the trunk of the body varies between 33.5 and 36.9 °C (92.3 and 98.4 °F), though the skin's temperature is lower over protruding parts, like the nose, and higher over muscles and active organs.”
That page also says “Recording skin temperature presents extensive difficulties”, so that 33°C may not be very accurate.
all the bloodwork looks normal except for cholesterol (cuz high fat low carb) - see cholesterol code for that
What's worked for her is HRT, and more recently, intermittent fasting. (food between noon and 8pm only, but whatever in that time) It's really worth getting hormone levels checked and adjusted.
Low serotonin can result in metabolic inefficiencies which means poor body temperature and/or weight gain/loss out of norm even with a perfect diet. Over correcting with too much serotonin results in different mood irregularities like nightmares and anxiety and more.
The primary limitation with these problems, aside from metabolic issues, are poor decision skills that in isolation are either prematurely considered or too emotionally weighted.
not a doctor and this isnt medical advice. It may be low stomach acid if you struggle with digestion? Non-scientific but try an at home burp test for 3-5 mornings. i know someone with chronic low acid for years that went unnoticed, and doctors didnt spot it after trying PPIs, etc. Odds are low, but might be worth looking into
RE: Treatment:
"“What is we can track the body temperature of people with depression to time heat-based treatments well?”
"If thermoregulation is a symptom of depression, as the Oura Ring study suggests, temperature treatment could be an effective way to treat depression."
Thermoregulation is a symptom of depression? How do they reach the conclusion that "temperature treatment" could treat depression, and why do they not define what "temperature treament" even is? As someone with MDD I seriously doubt making myself warm more often is going to affect my symptoms, but it's certainly an alluring concept as I do enjoy saunas.
I think this finding can be helpful is trying to find other ways to reduce inflammation in the body (assuming inflammation is driving the temperature increase) Interventions like diet changes could lead to both less inflammation and less depression.
I know that forcing a happy face could lighten up a bit your mood, but this is going too far, and maybe is too simplistic in its view of depression.
- causation is difficult to establish
- symptoms can sometimes themselves be a proximal cause
- treatment of symptoms is one way to determine causation
- treating symptoms might help break at least part of a bad feedback loop
Conversely I can imagine regular visits to a sauna to affect chronic inflammation processes in your body in some way and then potentially affect the depression too.
Overall I have a strong feeling that depression itself is very akin to fever: a symptom of a very wide range of different problems that require different treatments. Sometimes just the symptomatic care is sufficient, sometimes it's even essential or else you die. Anti-inflammatory drugs are a thing and so are the anti-depressants. But studying and treating depression as a distinct disease probably makes no more sense than studying and treating fever as a distinct disease.
Supposedly, if you cool the body down externally (cold shower, cold environment) it will try to increase body temp, but if you take a hot shower or sauna, the body will instead try to lower its temperature.
Source: it's 22h00 here and its probably about 28C in my bedroom now. The walls are radiating heat into the room after baking in the sun the whole day. All my windows are open and ceiling fan is on. I'll be sleeping on top of a towel tonight as to not destroy my mattress.
I'm definitely not depressed... I think.
Here in Australia, summers are usually associated with happiness, social gatherings, beach, BBQ's
The article talks more about self regulation regardless of outside temperature influence.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/01/human-body-te...
> The researchers determined that the body temperature of men born in the early to mid-1990s is on average 1.06 F lower than that of men born in the early 1800s. Similarly, they determined that the body temperature of women born in the early to mid-1990s is on average 0.58 F lower than that of women born in the 1890s. These calculations correspond to a decrease in body temperature of 0.05 F every decade.
The ice plunge is generally understood to help by stimulating the vagus nerve and parasympathetic nervous system. But I wonder if it is related to this too.
I'm sure it's higher now and yet obesity rates keep going up. Shows how ineffective these solutions are. People are more active and tracking their calories yet weight gain is unstoppable.
* https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrie...
I don't think wearing a smartwatch will immediately shed you weight. You actually need to actively put in the work both through exercise and a proper diet.
A watch is just a tool that supports the rest of it.
More people might be consuming diet beverages as well and yet weights might be going up, that may not necessarily be the failing of the diet beverage.
As we are talking about smartwatches, let me chime in with my personal, N == 1 observation.
I bought a smartwatch on the day that Russia invaded Ukraine (the timing was an accident, though). So, two years by now. I set up 10 thousand steps to be the goal and since then, I met that goal 98 % of the time, missing only 13 days. I loved walking before, but I stayed home when it was too hot, too cold or too rainy; now I go out anyway, so my daily amount of steps has significantly increased. By how much? Not sure, but 30 per cent at least, possibly up to 40 per cent. My daily average now is just slightly under 13 thousand a day.
Now, there are visible and sometimes measurable improvements to my health:
* lower blood pressure (by some 8/4)
* lower resting heart rate (around 48-49, used to be more like 60),
* better immunity, I am no longer particularly sensitive to wind, rain etc.; I believe that this comes from constant exposure to all sorts of weather when walking outside,
* my knees have improved so much that I feel like being 20 again. I no longer remember which one gave me so much trouble that I almost ended up in surgery in 2017. They are both just fine.
But one parameter hasn't budged even the tiniest bit: my weight oscillates around the same base level. Something inside defends the set point, much like something else defends my body temperature.
I had shit knees when I was around 30. I started physiotherapy and going to the gym. This sort of worked a little bit, but what really eradicated all my knee problems was large volumes or running, jogging and walking. My plan was to start running, but since I couldn't really run properly for extended periods of time without pain, most of my "runs" were actually just fast walking. Now, about two years later, I can't really remember the last time I had problems with my knees.
When we say "this point in the obesity epidemics", something occurring in our society so fast that it is now an epidemic makes me think it's more environmental that internal. However, I do think there is a chunk of evidence coming out in support of other metabolic measures being at play during weight loss, but we have to be careful simply assuming we fall into this category because its too hard or we're not seeing results.
There is an overwhelming abundance of convenient food around us which is super high in calories. I have friends who have travelled to the US and they could not believe how big portion sizes were, the types of foods being serviced and (supposedly) how hard it was to find quality vegetables with food.
It's excellent that you were able to improve your health so much through just upping your step count.
There are other factors too: * What were the types of foods you were eating? * Did you increase your calorie intake proportionally to the additional steps? It doesn't take much
Our bodies HATE losing weight (fat) and they make it difficult for us.
I know many people who wear Whoop bands and swear by it but month after month their clothing gets just a little tighter and their double chins just a little bigger.
Yes they would have elevated body temperature, but that does not indicate that it is the symptom to focus upon.
With a severe depression a person will go through periods of extreme anxiety, guilt, for some suicidal thoughts, and in general serious continuous stress. Parts of the brain get rewired, with long term depression.
They will experience periods of elevated body temperature, heck high enough to be categorized as a fever in some cases, but lowering the body temperature, for instance, with a cool bath or cool wrappings, is not going to change or alleviate depression.
That implies disdain that this wasn't discovered ages ago, to the point where it is widely a known truth among regular people. A fact discovered relatively recently as part of very exciting new things that are taking place in biology and medicine would not qualify for that.
Sounds to me like there is unrecognized infection causing a low-grade fever and heat treatments kill infection, allowing the fever to break.