Posted by SLS on January 2, 2013, at 7:54:16
Hi.
Here is a summary of another study demonstrating an association between inflammation and depression. Although the cross-sectional design of the study could not determine cause-and-effect directionality, people with CRP levels in excess of 10.00 mg/L were three times as likely to be depressed.
Minocycline is a potent anti-inflammatory in the brain, and this is one of the reasons I continue to take it. However, for some people, remission may take as long as a year to attain. I felt an improvement with in a week of starting minocycline. This was also the case with a friend of mine. It might not be as important to establish directionality as it is to treat the inflammation when it appears. Apparently, the brain can be a source of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and may not need peripheral inducers to become inflamed.
I don't subscribe to the inflammation causes depression school of thought. In my mind, stress comes first, depression comes second, and inflammation comes third. Of course this is only a guess. At most, there might be a convergence. However, there are too many different non-inflammatory biomarkers associated with depression to ignore, including genetic.
- Scott
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"Elevated levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a biomarker commonly used to assess inflammation, may be associated with an increased risk for depression, new research suggests.Data from 2 general population studies conducted in Denmark, which included a total of more than 73,000 adults, showed that those who had the highest levels of CRP were more than twice as likely to have psychological distress and depression than those with normal levels of CRP.
Increasing levels of CRP were also associated with an increased risk for hospitalization due to depression.
"Contrary to previous studies, these associations did not disappear when we adjusted for BMI [body mass index] or chronic disease," write Marie Kim Wium-Andersen, MD, from the Department of Clinical Biochemistry at Herlev Hospital and from the Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark, and colleagues.
The investigators note that more research is now needed "to establish the direction of the association between CRP and depression" especially because these studies were primarily cross-sectional.
"The results also support the initiation of intervention studies to examine whether adding anti-inflammatory drugs to antidepressants for treatment of depression will improve outcome," they write.
The study was published online December 24 in Archives of General Psychiatry."
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Some see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.- George Bernard Shaw
poster:SLS
thread:1034419
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20121231/msgs/1034419.html