Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature
1–10 of 112 posts
Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature
#2Feels like we're living in the dark ages of correlations. Given today's compute power and availability of medical data, why wasn't this already a well known fact?
Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature
#3Feels like we're living in the dark ages of correlations. Given today's compute power and availability of medical data, why wasn't this already a well known fact?
Do you have the slightest idea how many variables to check for correlations there are in a biological system as complex as the human body? And how few of those variables can be reliably measured and analyzed at the same time in most of these studies?
Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature
#4Maybe AC ownership correlated with depression during summer. Being hot sucks.
Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature
#5Feels like we're living in the dark ages of correlations. Given today's compute power and availability of medical data, why wasn't this already a well known fact?
Do you have the slightest idea how many variables to check for correlations there are in a biological system as complex as the human body? And how few of those variables can be reliably measured and analyzed at the same time in most of these studies?
Actually, a lot is being recorded ...
Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature
#6Feels like we're living in the dark ages of correlations. Given today's compute power and availability of medical data, why wasn't this already a well known fact?
It's easy to find correlations, having enough evidence to rule out mere coincidence is harder.
Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature
#7Maybe AC ownership correlated with depression during summer. Being hot sucks.
The article talks about self-thermoregulation — so I don't know if those would exactly be correlated.
Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature
#8I have a hard time making sense of parts of this article.
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.
Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature
#9Maybe AC ownership correlated with depression during summer. Being hot sucks.
Many parts of the world don't have AC, and many people in those parts are not depressed.
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.
Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature
#10I have a hard time making sense of parts of this article. 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 "temp…
This is just my hunch, but I think temperature treatment is the wrong conclusion to this finding. When someone is sick with a virus and has a fever, people suggest taking ibuprofen to lower the fever effectively masking the symptoms, but that does nothing to address the underlying cause.
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.