London - In a trial, psychiatrists found patients who spent two-and-a-half hours in a heated chamber experienced a significant drop in depression 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.
Treatment typically involves medication thought to affect levels of brain chemicals linked to low mood. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors 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. 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 yourmood.
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 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 sixweeks.
Some of the effects were seen within 24 hours, much sooner than the two months it can take for medications to show a benefit.
This 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.
The study opens the possibility of therapeutic approaches that simply require single, weekly or even monthly administration.
Daily Mail