A single session of whole-body hyperthermia produced a significant antidepressant effect within one week, persisting for six weeks post-treatment.

“People with major depressive disorder were exposed to this this device where they're heating heating up their core body temperature by about two degrees and they had an antid-depressant effect that lasted six months compared to a sham control which was also heating people up but not”

“multiple infrared sauna sessions (also elevating core body temp) significantly reduce depressive symptoms, as evidenced by a range of test scores.”

“a single session of whole-body hyperthermia, raising core body temperature to 101.3 F, significantly alleviated symptoms in individuals with major depressive disorder, outperforming a sham control.”

“A single session of whole-body hyperthermia (similar to the sauna) produced a significant antidepressant effect apparent within a week of treatment that persisted for 6 weeks after treatment in people. https://t.co/TKKeAW7Fdf”

“potential whole-body hyperthermia, a technique mostly indistinguishable from sauna use, may have for treatment of major depression.”

“And, like a lot of people are hooked on hot yoga, and it’s because, I’m convinced it’s because it’s an anti-depression strategy. That they are essentially doing something very similar to what we do in the box.”

“So the fact we saw this massive difference between the two suggests that it has to do with the heat. In effect, we, just recently we’ve now realized that in fact, the fake group, the sham group, they got more heat than we probably should have given them. Some of them actually went up, and those people had the same kind of antidepressant response as the other people. So yeah, so we know it’s the heat.”

“So proposed this dual intervention with a mind and a body component, and that's what we're moving forward with. So we're developing that combined intervention.”

“The drops in depression within a week were pretty impressive. And what's more, those drops were maintained six weeks later. And this was one whole-body hyperthermia session.”

“Half people will get that and then half will also get the whole body hyperthermia sessions. And we will see, does adding the whole-body hyperthermia lead to larger depression decreases?”

“There was an effect within just a week of treatment, which is quite quickly. It's soon. I mean, like, if you think about classical, like, serotonin reuptake inhibitors, SSRIs, which are used very, you know, widely for, you know, depression treatment, they don't work that quick, they don't work immediately like that. So that was one thing, to get your thoughts. And, two, the fact that they did one session and it lasted six weeks. Like, they didn't have to keep going every day or even every week. I mean, they just did it once, and it was a six-week...like, there was a lasting effect.”

“And when you see a treatment like that, with that strong of a control condition and those effect sizes and those reductions in depression, it catches your eye.”

“And one of the things they noted is that the effect sizes of the change in depression from before to after the intervention, in other words, the size of the reduction in depression, was higher if people spent more time getting to that peak temperature.”

“And so the research assistants went back to the investigators and said, "The patients are talking. What should we be saying to them? What should we be doing?" And I remember when Chuck told me this story and just thinking, "Well, if whole-body hyperthermia is making people want to talk more, and one of the major reasons why people don't do well in therapy is that they don't want to talk, and they don't want to engage, should we be pairing these things? Could using heat then cause people to be able to be more engaged in therapy?"”