Inflammation and depression

[Marco]

This is a nice easy read covering a number of issues we discuss here :

They have been following up on 4,500 children born in the Bristol area in the 1990s. They took blood samples when the children were aged nine to see if they showed evidence of raised levels of inflammation — testing for interleukin-6, a protein that the body releases in response to infections.

The investigators then followed up the children nine years later, when they were 18, to see if they had suffered from episodes of depression.

The results, which were published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry last August, showed that the nine-year-olds with high levels of inflammation in their bodies were nearly twice as likely as those with low inflammation levels to become depressed as teenagers.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...sts-say-illness-caused-inflammation-body.html

 

[Bob]

Coincidentally, I came across this yesterday...

Is depression a kind of allergic reaction?
A growing number of scientists are suggesting that depression is a result of inflammation caused by the body’s immune system
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...-allergic-reaction-inflammation-immune-system

Also...

Anti-inflammatory drugs ‘could fight depression’
Scientists to launch £5m study that explores links between immune disorders and mental illness – and could lead to new treatments
http://www.theguardian.com/science/...drugs-could-fight-depression-immune-disorders

 

[natasa778]

This is also very interesting, just out

“Even if preliminary, these results provide the first evidence that the intake of probiotics may help reduce negative thoughts associated with sad mood. As such, our findings shed an interesting new light on the potential of probiotics to serve as adjuvant or preventive therapy for depression.”

 

[SOC]

Even if preliminary, these results provide the first evidence that the intake of probiotics may help reduce negative thoughts associated with sad mood

Say what? I wouldn't be surprised if inflammation is related to depression, nor do I consider it unlikely that probiotics might reduce inflammation and thereby reduce depression risk. It's possible. But probiotics changing people's thoughts? Seriously? Are all the little newly happy gut microbes whispering their happy little thoughts into our ears? Oooooh! Mind control by probiotic.

I think somebody is conflating so-called depression resulting from poor self-talk with so-called depression from abnormal neurochemistry. Poor self-talk requires psychotherapy to correct and I doubt gut microbes, no matter how happy with their new diet, make good psychotherapists. Disturbed neurochemistry is an organic issue that requires some kind of physical, not talk-based, therapy. Happy gut microbes might help there. That could eliminate a sad mood, but in that case the sad mood is physically-based, not negative-thinking-based.

Yes, yes, I know mind and body are linked. I'm not saying they're not. I am saying that we can't think ourselves well and we don't change our thoughts by taking probiotics. Mood maybe, and feelings, but not thoughts directly.