Getting warm has a dramatic antidepressant effect, according to a new report published in the prestigious journal JAMA Psychiatry. But is it hot science or a hot mess? The researchers, led by Clemens Janssen of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studied 29 people with depression who were not receiving any other treatments. Half were randomized to receive whole-body hyperthermia (WBH), using a setup which raised their core body temperature to 38.5 degrees (37 degrees is normal).
The other half of the patients were the control group who received a 'sham' treatment. They spent time in the hot-box as well, but on a much lower setting: their core temperature only rose to 37.7 degrees. This mild treatment was intended to make the placebo patients think that they really had received an active treatment, to generate the same placebo effect in both groups. What happened? Although both groups became less depressed following the ...
