Posted by oceansun on October 22, 2014, at 20:02:27
In reply to CRP levels predict which AD someone responds to., posted by SLS on September 16, 2014, at 8:07:04
Thank you for this post! My CRP is 0.2, very low. I wonder if that's from the SSRI I was taking at the time? SSRIs had a numbing effect on me, kinda worked a bit though. It helped with the deepest lows, but not the daily depression. I only tried Prozac and Zoloft. That was forever ago. Maybe Lexapro for the next (I hope not) major depressive episode...
I guess this relates to the new study about Celebrex and SSRIs being helpful, given the inflammatory factor?
C-Reactive Protein (CRP) is a measure of inflammation occurring somewhere in the body. Many researchers believe that inflammation in the brain participates in the evolution of depression. Some even suggest that minocycline, a potent anti-inflammatory that penetrates the brain, has antidepressant properties.
>
> Here, we have a study that reports an association between CRP blood levels and the responsitivity to two different antidepressants: escitalopram (Lexapro) and nortriptyline (Pamelor).
>
> Low CRP = escitalopram
> High CRP = nortriptyline
>
>
> - Scott
>
> --------------------------------------
>
> An Inflammatory Biomarker as a Differential Predictor of Outcome of Depression Treatment With Escitalopram and Nortriptyline
>
> The American Journal of Psychiatry
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> http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/Article.aspx?ArticleID=1888992
>
> --------------------------------------
>
> Paraphrase:
>
> Study Finds That Common Lab Test Can Help Predict Antidepressant Treatment Response
>
> Monday, July 21, 2014
>
> APA Psychiatric News Alert
>
> Researchers have been studying the interaction between inflammation and depression for decades. Now a team of Canadian and European scientists report in AJP in Advance on a way to help predict treatment outcomes based on levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a biomarker of systemic inflammation. The study was part of the Genome-Based Therapeutic Drugs for Depression (GENDEP) study and compared outcomes in patients randomized to the SSRI escitalopram (n=115) or the tricyclic antidepressant nortriptyline (n=126). GENDEP is a multinational study sponsored by the European Commission designed to identify genetic markers that can help physicians decide which antidepressant is likely to be effective in a particular patient.
>
> Patients with low baseline levels of CRP improved more with escitalopram, while those with higher CRP levels did better with nortriptyline, as measured on the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale, reported Rudolph Uher, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and colleagues. The effect size of the differential prediction met criteria for clinical significance, suggesting that the prediction can be meaningful in individual cases.
>
> The study must be replicated and tested with other antidepressants, said Uher. However, this exploration of the different effects of norepinephrine and serotonin on the immune system may open doors to predict how patients respond to treatments and perhaps narrow the trial-and-error process of finding the right antidepressant for each individual.
poster:oceansun
thread:1071203
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20141017/msgs/1072701.html