From: sheriffcoltrane23x@gmail.com   
      
   Inflammation depression link is not to be sneezed at   
   September 23, 2013 11.32pm AEST   
    Neil Harrison   
      
   Blue with the flu? max_thinks_sees   
   Have you ever had the flu, and along with the physical symptoms a temporary   
   feeling of being low and fed up? Though most of us would shrug these feelings   
   off as a result of not being able to go out with friends or play sport, they   
   are beginning to    
   attract some serious attention from neuroscientists and psychiatrists.   
      
   The interest stems from the similarities between these sickness symptoms and   
   those of depression: low mood, apathy and loss of interest in activities we   
   previously enjoyed. Both are also associated with poor concentration, slowing   
   of thoughts and actions,   
    and a loss of motivation, particularly to engage socially.   
      
   When it comes to sickness, of course, the symptoms are much less severe than   
   in depression and fortunately only last a few days. However, their remarkable   
   similarity has led psychiatrists to ask whether depression is perhaps an   
   unusually severe or    
   prolonged sickness response.   
      
   To test this hypothesis, researchers have begun to look at the blood markers   
   of inflammation in people who are depressed. More than 100 studies of this   
   type have been completed, and the general consensus is that people with   
   depression do appear to have    
   higher levels of bodily inflammation.   
      
   While this data is important, it doesn't tell us whether inflammation actually   
   causes depression and has led to some controversy. For example, it is   
   perfectly possible that depression causes inflammation by making us less   
   attentive of our physical health.   
      
   So scientists have needed to find ways to safely induce inflammation in   
   otherwise healthy volunteers.   
      
   In a study we carried out, volunteers were given a clinical typhoid   
   vaccination. This produces mild inflammation that is gone within 24 hours.   
   After being given the vaccination, volunteers reported a slight lowering of   
   their mood and some concentration    
   difficulties.   
      
   Depression: a response to sickness?   
      
   However, it's what is happening in the brain that is so exciting. Inflammation   
   rapidly triggers a change in the responsiveness of a critical mood-regulating   
   network and the way that it connects to other areas of the brain. Remarkably,   
   this is the same    
   network that is impaired in depression. This suggests that depression - at   
   least in some cases - could well be some type of aberrant sickness response.   
      
   Although this finding shows that mood changes induced by inflammation use the   
   same brain network as depression, it doesn't tell us whether inflammation   
   could be a factor in clinical depression, which leads to more prolonged   
   periods of feeling down.   
      
   To study this further, depression researchers teamed up with a surprising   
   group of patients - those with chronic hepatitis-C. The disease doesn't cause   
   particularly high levels of inflammation but if left untreated it slowly   
   causes liver damage that can    
   lead to cirrhosis and ultimately liver failure. To prevent this, and to   
   potentially cure the hepatitis-C, most people are advised to take a six to   
   12-month course of antivirals and an immune-system boosting drug called   
   interferon, which helps regulate    
   inflammation.   
      
   But interferon injections not only induce sickness symptoms but can also   
   result in clinical depression. About one in three patients treated with   
   interferon develop depression, typically within six to eight weeks of starting   
   treatment. The depression    
   presents in a similar way to other people suffering with depression, and shows   
   a similar response to anti-depressant medication. This suggests that chronic   
   immune stimulation can cause depression.   
      
   An inflammatory suggestion   
      
   It remains uncertain how many patients with depression may have an   
   inflammatory cause. It is also unclear whether anti-inflammatory drugs would   
   help. Recent data suggests that they may, though it is still too early to be   
   sure of this.   
      
   For example, in a paper published last year researchers gave patients with   
   depression an anti-inflammatory drug originally designed to treat rheumatoid   
   arthritis. Even though these people had severe and hard to treat depression,   
   some of them showed a    
   significant improvement in their symptoms, particularly those who already had   
   high levels of inflammation where the treatment worked on both the   
   inflammation and the depression. A similar finding has also been found in   
   patients with psoriasis who had    
   milder depressive symptoms.   
      
   These discoveries are causing considerable excitement within psychiatry, an   
   area of medicine where there has been no new class of medication for nearly 20   
   years. If this early promise is continued they may also open up an important   
   new therapeutic    
   options for the millions of people worldwide who suffer from depression, a   
   condition that can often have a profound and devastating impact on their lives.   
      
      
      
   http://theconversation.com/inflammation-depression-link-is-not-t   
   -be-sneezed-at-18212   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)