{"id":9116,"date":"2017-11-27T08:38:32","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T14:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/?p=9116"},"modified":"2022-03-21T15:30:21","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T20:30:21","slug":"depression-inflammation-and-you-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/27\/depression-inflammation-and-you-2","title":{"rendered":"Depression, Inflammation, and You"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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You might not immediately think conditions as apparently disparate as depression and inflammation could be linked. Right up front, let me say if you\u2019ve got a history of depression or anxiety, you\u2019re not alone. With 11% of Americans over age ten taking antidepressants daily, we can probably triple that percentage to estimate the number who have depression or anxiety but aren\u2019t taking medication.<\/p>\n
When you\u2019re depressed, you feel a pervasive sadness that won\u2019t go away. The irony is that despite feeling depressed, you realize there\u2019s not that much in your life to feel depressed about. You may be reasonably healthy, have some close friends and a job (or realize you won\u2019t be unemployed much longer), and you\u2019re not being held captive by ISIS. But, jeez, you just feel depressed.<\/p>\n
When you look back, you know you\u2019ve been through this before, maybe had some counseling, which helped or didn\u2019t. Maybe some meds, but you didn\u2019t like them\u2026or you want to get off them but dare not try. You know you\u2019d feel better after a good run or some yoga, but your motivation is less than zero.<\/p>\n
And, oh crap, the clocks were just set back\u2013winter, darkness, now you\u2019re in for it.<\/p>\n
Inflammation seems different<\/strong>
When you think your body might be inflamed, or your nutritionist says something like \u201cWe need you on a low-inflammation eating program,\u201d we\u2019re describing a situation that\u2019s relatively new to a physician\u2019s vocabulary. Inflammation isn\u2019t an old word, of course, when it refers to your body\u2019s limited physiologic response to some specific irritant. Leave a splinter in your thumb and you\u2019ll see the area around it swell slightly, get warm, and turn red, your body\u2019s elegant inflammatory defense mechanism to oust the splinter and protect the rest of you from more widespread infection.<\/p>\n
Anything with the suffix \u201c-itis\u201d at the end indicates this type of local inflammation: dermatitis (skin), tonsillitis (tonsils), sinusitis (sinuses), appendicitis (appendix), and colitis (colon). Historically, most doctors have limited their use of the term \u201cinflammation\u201d to one specific \u2013itis, the area that needs work.<\/p>\n
Until relatively recently, little thought was given to the idea of total body inflammation, but as more chronic illnesses like Alzheimer\u2019s, heart disease, and generalized achiness\/constant tiredness are linked with inflammation, in certain circles curiosity is being aroused.<\/p>\n
Could depression and inflammation be linked?<\/strong>
Why not? Depression can bring with it a plethora of physical symptoms: fatigue, the blahs, muscle pains, headaches, digestive issues. In fact, research over the past few years has shown that the blood tests used to measure inflammation when evaluating heart disease risk (high inflammation being a well-established risk factor for heart disease) return elevated results in many people with depression. These tests include sedimentation rate (sed rate), C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and tumor necrosis factor (TNF).<\/p>\n
In addition, the antidepressant meds (Prozac, Zoloft, Lexapro, et al.) all have a mild anti-inflammatory effect. Some researchers think this contributes strongly to their clinical benefits.<\/p>\n
Now the question becomes: Can the anti-inflammatory family of medications (ibuprofen, for example) actually help with depression? Before I give away the answer, as an aside I\u2019ll say that the research article I refer to just below is precisely what\u2019s wrong with conventional medicine. Instead of exploring what might actually be causing the inflammation (generally, it\u2019s those old villains diet and lifestyle), researchers develop more drugs.<\/p>\n
This particular study<\/a>, an important one, suggests that taking an anti-inflammatory (like ibuprofen or Celebrex) with an antidepressant will enhance the clinical effect of the antidepressant. The study itself is a meta-analysis, which means the researchers reviewed data from a range of previously published trials. In this analysis they looked at 14 trials with a total of 6,262 patients who had clinical depression in which an anti-inflammatory med or a placebo had been taken along with the antidepressant.<\/p>\n
And, indeed, those who also took an anti-inflammatory fared better and the side effects were pretty minimal.<\/p>\n
Getting to the source of inflammation<\/strong>
What\u2019s unfortunate is how little attention is paid to exploring the source of our widespread inflammation. If a huge portion of the world\u2019s population is walking around inflamed, let\u2019s find out why.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a list of the most significant sources of inflammation, from a pretty obscure study out of Australia<\/a>. Each of these factors appears to increase the risk for developing depression:<\/p>\n