[HN Gopher] Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: bod...
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       Fitness trackers find new symptom of depression: body temperature
        
       Author : sizzle
       Score  : 30 points
       Date   : 2024-02-15 17:41 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.sacbee.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.sacbee.com)
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | Feels 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?
        
         | vanderZwan wrote:
         | 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?
        
           | amelius wrote:
           | Actually, a lot is being recorded ...
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiomics
        
             | vanderZwan wrote:
             | Yeah I know, I used to work for a single-cell molecular
             | neurobiology group. But you're citing a development that
             | mostly took of in the last decade, and your question was
             | "why wasn't this already a well known fact?"
             | 
             | 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.
        
         | ben_w wrote:
         | It's easy to find correlations, having enough evidence to rule
         | out mere coincidence is harder.
         | 
         | http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
        
           | amelius wrote:
           | That's why you need more than two handfuls of datapoints ...
        
       | maxglute wrote:
       | Maybe AC ownership correlated with depression during summer.
       | Being hot sucks.
        
         | iamthirsty wrote:
         | The article talks about self-thermoregulation -- so I don't
         | know if those would exactly be correlated.
        
         | beAbU wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | tanseydavid wrote:
           | <hot-or-not> That's HOT!
        
       | standardly wrote:
       | 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 "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.
        
         | francisofascii wrote:
         | 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.
        
         | gmuslera wrote:
         | 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.
        
         | Peregrine1 wrote:
         | There's research that getting really hot (ie with hot saunas)
         | can affect depression. One interesting supporting finding is
         | that if you run around but don't get hot (ie don't sweat) then
         | the exercise doesn't do much for depression
        
       | pedalpete wrote:
       | Apparently this isn't new knowledge, a study from 2003.
       | 
       | 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.
       | 
       | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12759553/
        
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       (page generated 2024-02-15 23:01 UTC)