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Immune system activation and depression

Skippa

Anti-BS
Messages
841
Well, carrying the diagnosis of both depression and CFS, it is a race as to which school can provide me a "fix the immune system and make me better" pill first! I'm in the queue for both :D

I note the article is delving into the role of inflammation a lot.

But wait! Didn't @Hip get there first?

We have out very own researcher right here proposing this for ages, somebody send these guys a link to Hips thread!

Imagine, if you will, a Venn diagram. One circle is labeled depression, the other circle is labeled ME/CFS.

The area where the two circles intersect should be known as Hip's Disease.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,820
But wait! Didn't @Hip get there first?

I saw some early studies published around a decade ago that began investigating the link between inflammatory cytokines and depression (refs: 1 2 3). So this idea that brain inflammation might cause depression has been around a while.

My theories and successful experimental treatments (detailed here and here) were more focused the role of inflammatory cytokines and brain inflammation in generalized anxiety disorder, and how to treat anxiety by a cocktail of supplements that reduce neuroinflammation.

As the above news item indicates, research on the neuroinflammation–depression link now seem to be gathering more momentum.

But as yet, I have not seen any research or published papers investigating the neuroinflammation–anxiety link, apart from this one (which calls for more research into inflammation and anxiety).



By the way, @Skippa, in response to your thread asking for antidepressant mood enhancers supps and strategies, I am in the process of compiling a list of all the supplements and drugs that I have found useful in combatting depression, and will post these soon in a new thread. I have been struggling with comorbid depression for many years now, a depression that appears to be caused by the same virus that trigger my ME/CFS.

I have not had much success with standard depression treatments such as SSRIs or TCAs, so have been experimenting with unusual and off-label treatments.
 
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FMMM1

Senior Member
Messages
513
Good program but I wish they'd provide further information re the inflammation biomarkers e.g. one contributor spoke of a marker being raised from 0.7 (normal) to 40 but didn't identify which one. I suspect they're referring to the cytokines which Mady Hornig and Ian Lipkin showing were elevated in their 2015 paper on ME/CFS [published in Molecular Psychiatry]. There may be a benefit to those with ME/CFS e.g. if they look closer and try to understand the inflammation process (i.e. cause of elevated biomarkers/cytokines) or identify further autoimmune antibodies [(one of my interests) - unlikely]. Mandy Hornig has (from memory) spoken on how understanding ME/CFS may help to understand/treat psychiatric conditions and been challenged re same. Amasing how seemingly unrelated areas of research can overlap.