Body warmer that may lift depression
HEATING the body may be a new way to treat depression. in a trial, U.S. psychiatrists found patients who spent two-and-ahalf hours in a heated chamber experienced a significant drop in symptoms after a single session.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin believe their results suggest that depression may be linked to the body’s temperature control mechanisms. Raising body temperature helps by ‘resetting’ the brain signalling system that controls heat and mood.
Depression affects about one in ten adults according to the NHS.
Treatment typically involves medication thought to affect levels of brain chemicals linked to low mood. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIS) are the most widely prescribed antidepressant drugs, and are said to work by increasing levels of the brain chemical serotonin, which is involved in mood regulation.
however, drug therapy can take two to eight weeks to have an impact, and some patients won’t respond.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists estimates that 50 to 65 per cent of those taking antidepressants will see an improvement, but so, too, will 30 per cent of those taking placebo pills.
There are also potential side-effects, including reduced libido, dry mouth and nausea — and, more rarely, aggression and suicidal thoughts.
The new treatment, known as whole-body hyperthermia, uses infrared heat to warm the entire body (apart from the head), raising it from a normal temperature of 37c to around 38.5c — a temperature that is usually associated with having a fever.
This is based on the understanding that there is an overlap between how the body regulates heat and your mood.
For example, brain chemicals such as serotonin and dopamine, which are involved in depression, also have a role in controlling the body’s temperature.
in a recent study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, 30 patients who were suffering from depression either lay in a hyperthermia chamber or a ‘placebo’ chamber for a 2½-hour session.
Results showed that hyperthermia therapy reduced depression scores by up to 50 per cent within a week of the treatment and lasted for up to six weeks.
Some of the effects were seen within 24 hours, much sooner than the two months it can take for SSRIS to show a benefit.
‘One of the reasons why hyperthermia therapy may work quicker is that it may activate serotonin in the ways that antidepressants eventually do, but it doesn’t take a number of weeks to do it,’ said the lead researcher Dr Charles Raison, a professor of human ecology and psychiatry. Commenting on the research, Carmine Pariante, a professor of biological psychiatry at King’s College London, says: ‘This is a very important study.
‘it confirms the notion that depression is not just a disorder of the mind or, indeed, of the brain, but actually a disorder of the whole body, which is at the core of much research on depression today.’
The study ‘also shows that a single session of a potential antidepressant treatment has long-term effects,’ says Professor Pariante.
‘it opens the possibility of therapeutic approaches that simply require single, weekly or even monthly administration.’
This, she suggests, would make it easier for patients to stick with treatment.
MEANWHILE, gut bacteria could explain why some people develop mood disorders, according to a recent study presented at the American Society for Microbiology in Boston.
Researchers at Northeastern University in the U.S. identified a new gut bacteria, called KLE1738.
it only grows when it is fed the brain chemical GABA — which is linked to mood and is found in low levels in patients with depression.
The presence of this bacteria in the guts of certain people could explain low mood.