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Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature

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Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature

#31

About one in five adults wore a fitness tracker, either as a band or smartwatch, in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center. 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.

pepel

Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature

#32

About one in five adults wore a fitness tracker, either as a band or smartwatch, in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center. 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.

Food is getting less nutritious.* I think this is a largely overlooked factor in the obesity epidemic.

* https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrie...

Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature

#33
Ironically, heating people up actually can lead to rebound body temperature lowering that lasts longer than simply cooling people down directly, as through an ice bath

Sounds to me like there is unrecognized infection causing a low-grade fever and heat treatments kill infection, allowing the fever to break.

Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature

#34

About one in five adults wore a fitness tracker, either as a band or smartwatch, in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center. 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.

That's a very generalised take with a big assumption.

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.

Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature

#35
post #4

Maybe AC ownership correlated with depression during summer. Being hot sucks.

Depressive seasons are often associated with Winters where people are stuck inside in gloomy weather, lack of daylight etc

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.

Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature

#36

I feel like at some point we're gonna discover depression is basically some kind of inflammatory disease

My experience with covid is that severe post-disease inflammation can cause wild neurological symptoms including anxiety and depression. I had a 'mild' case and still suffered significant, long-lasting inflammation. I see very few people talking about this outside special-interest covid discussion boards. Surprisingly, my doctor was already aware of the destructive potential of inflammation for mental health.

Depression disorders as treatable, “non-commitable” (i.e. won’t be thrown into the loony bin for it) condition are a fairly recent concept. I would not be surprised if it’s determined that “depression” has various etiologies.

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.

Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature

#37

About one in five adults wore a fitness tracker, either as a band or smartwatch, in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center. 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.

Food is getting less nutritious.* I think this is a largely overlooked factor in the obesity epidemic. * https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrie...

It's definitely a constellation of causes, the continued loss of third places, the continued growth of auto centric suburbs and office parks, etc

Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food is getting less nutritious.* I think this is a largely overlooked factor in the obesity epidemic. * https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrie...

It's definitely a constellation of causes, the continued loss of third places, the continued growth of auto centric suburbs and office parks, etc

I'm all for supporting more walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods. That's definitely an issue.

Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature

#39

I 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…

It looks like a medical anti pattern, deal with the symptom that the base disease will cure itself, somewhat, maybe magically. 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.

A few things things:

- causation is difficult to establish

- symptoms can sometimes themselves be a proximal cause

- treatment of symptoms is one way to determine causation

Re: Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature

#40
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Dry or humid heat?

If he's complaining about 28 C it's a humid heat. 28 C dry needs covers
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