Print Page | Close Window

Depression Linked to Allergic Reactions ?

Printed From: COVID-19 / South Africa Omicron Variant
Category: Off Topic Forum
Forum Name: Talk about anything
Forum Description: (In other news... current events happening now)
URL: http://www.avianflutalk.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=37244
Printed Date: March 28 2024 at 9:24am


Topic: Depression Linked to Allergic Reactions ?
Posted By: Satori
Subject: Depression Linked to Allergic Reactions ?
Date Posted: April 24 2018 at 7:39am

Is depression a kind of allergic reaction?


https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jan/04/depression-allergic-reaction-inflammation-immune-system


George Slavich, a clinical psychologist at the University of California in Los Angeles, has spent years studying depression, and has come to the conclusion that it has as much to do with the body as the mind. “I don’t even talk about it as a psychiatric condition any more,” he says. “It does involve psychology, but it also involves equal parts of biology and physical health.”

The basis of this new view is blindingly obvious once it is pointed out: everyone feels miserable when they are ill. That feeling of being too tired, bored and fed up to move off the sofa and get on with life is known among psychologists as sickness behaviour. It happens for a good reason, helping us avoid doing more damage or spreading an infection any further.

It also looks a lot like depression. So if people with depression show classic sickness behaviour and sick people feel a lot like people with depression – might there be a common cause that accounts for both?

The answer to that seems to be yes, and the best candidate so far is inflammation – a part of the immune system that acts as a burglar alarm to close wounds and call other parts of the immune system into action. A family of proteins called cytokines sets off inflammation in the body, and switches the brain into sickness mode.

Advertisement
Both cytokines and inflammation http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2008.12.001" rel="nofollow - have been shown to rocket during depressive episodes , and – in people with bipolar – to drop off in periods of remission. Healthy people can also be temporarily put into a depressed, anxious state when given a vaccine that causes a spike in inflammation.

-------------
“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.” Gary Kasparov



Print Page | Close Window