Key Points
The premise of this is great, says Earric Lee, a physiologist with the Montreal Heart Institute, who was not involved in the study but has led sauna studies since completing his doctoral research in Finland..
More than 250 million people worldwide have major depressive disorder, and tens of millions of people dont respond to any available treatment...
(Tricking people into thinking theyve had heat treatment when they havent is difficult, but not impossiblethe 2016 study into hyperthermia had a placebo arm that subjected people to mild heat, and convinced 72 percent of participants that they were receiving the actual treatment.)..
For one, some of the participants completed weekly sauna sessions in Masons study while others completed fortnightly sessions; Chekroud believes that the benefit of receiving a higher dose of heat would manifest itself if the intervention were as strong as effective antidepressants..
Exercise is a phenomenally effective treatment, Chekroud says, noting his own 2018 study in The Lancet analyzing data from 1.2 million people...
