11 ms·

Scientists are suggesting that depression is a result of inflammation

129 points by ck425 12y ago

visakanv 12y ago
The "is" is more of a "might be". But it does seem fairly plausible. (The inverse seems less likely- that depression has absolutely nothing to do with the body.) I'm guessing that as with most complex phenomena, depression has a range of causal factors, and results from an interplay of many things. It will definitely be great if further research in this area helps to lessen the stigma around depression and other ailments.
DiabloD3 12y ago
I think this is extremely possible. During my research into Paleo (which has helped me tremendously, and I suggest anyone who has trouble keeping off the pounds, performing at work, or focusing in life to take a look at it), I've considered the possible link myself, but since I'm not a scientist I didn't have any way of looking into this. However, one of Paleo's major goals is to eliminating inflammation, and Paleo, for a large number of people, have lessened or completely eliminated the symptoms of depression, and I've seriously considered that there has to be some sort of link. Edit: Not sure why I'm getting downvoted here. n=1 experimental data may not be the best thing, but in the absence of studies like the one linked to, its all we have to go on.
- deleted 12y ago
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- manticore_alpha 12y ago
  Don't know why you're being downvoted. I experienced the same results on strict Paleo. Strict as in, absolutely cooking everything myself in Coconut Oil - that strict. I experienced a back injury and got off Predisone and Percocet within a month -- I owe largely to the inflammation reducing effects of the Paleo diet.
- deleted 12y ago
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  - manticore_alpha 12y ago
    Agree 100% - try getting away from CANOLA oil... nearly impossible.
    - DiabloD3 12y ago
      No it isn't. I did it, I consume zero seed oils.
  - DiabloD3 12y ago
    Yes, the Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio is the major mechanism (but not only) for the chronic inflammation caused by the modern diet, and yes, that has been pretty well proved. But theres no major study (besides the submitted link) that I'm aware of that links high inflammation diet to depression, even though, frankly, it's pretty obvious that there is some major link between the two. So, until the above mentioned study happened, it was pretty much just a large collection of n=1 experiments, where people ate strict Paleo and then, well, became supermen (I'm not actually sure how else to describe it; for some, it was absolutely miraculous).
    - tjradcliffe 12y ago
      Fortunately, unless you are an evolution-denialist, you know that human evolution adapted us to a very wide range of dietary factors, so within an extremely broad, shallow optimum pretty much any Omega 6/Omega 3 ratio will do. To argue otherwise would be to say that the human dietary optimum is narrow and deep, which is maximally implausible for an opportunistic hunter-gatherer-scavenger.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    Canola oil has the 2:1 ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 that your first link recommends: The ideal dietary ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 has been recommended by an international panel of lipid experts to be approximately 2:1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC533861/table/T2/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC533861/table/T2/ Canola oil is a good source of Omega-3 fatty acids (ALA). Among vegetable cooking oils, it is the best one. The fat composition is likely 'better' than olive oil.
- simplexion 12y ago
  You are getting down-voted because Paleo is not scientific.
  - DiabloD3 12y ago
    A diet whose only goal is to use science to eat nutritious food that is not toxic in any way and engineer a diet to do so, is not scientific? Explain to me how that works.
    - simplexion 12y ago
      Just because the goal is to use science does not mean it does. It uses evidence where it suits the beliefs of Paleo. This article is well written by an awesome scientist: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/09/10/3842158.htm http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/09/10/3842158.ht...
      - DiabloD3 12y ago
        A quick glance at that article seems its just whats called the Paleo Strawman: it talks about the Paleo name (and how it is connected to the Paleolithic era), but doesn't actually discuss the diet at all and just says "oh, Paleo is wrong because eating what we ate over 10 thousand years ago isn't appropriate for us today", even though the Paleo diet does not say that. The Paleo diet is about reducing inflammation, reducing toxins, and reducing anti-nutrients. The majority of the three of those comes from refined sugars, grains, seed oils, and legumes. What it DOESN'T do is blindly say "oh, our pre-agricultural ancestors ate that so it must be the best thing ever" because that has no place in Paleo as it is not scientific. The article proves that Karl S. Kruszelnicki (I've never heard of him before) has no interest in doing research into what he is writing about, because he does not mention any of what I just said in his article.
        simplexion 12y ago
        No True Scotsman! Instead of taking a quick glance at the article... actually read it.
- hristov 12y ago
  Paleo mostly helps because it eliminates refined sugar. It may eliminate some very mild symptoms of depression because sugar causes mild depression after the initial sugar high. Other than eliminating refined sugar, paleo is not very useful and there are much healthier sugar free diets out there. And the scientific justification for paleo is just false. Ancient humans did not eat that much meat. Sorry to rain on your parade, but you put in a mostly off-topic plug for paleo, so a response was justified.
  - nether 12y ago
    > And the scientific justification for paleo is just false. Ancient humans did not eat that much meat. What about native Inuit populations whose diets were nearly 100% meat?
    - tjradcliffe 12y ago
      They demonstrate the truth that humans evolved as opportunistic hunter-gatherer-scavengers who can survive comfortably on a huge range of diets, so anyone selling any particular narrowly defined diet--like "Paleo"--as in any way particularly "natural" to humans is in a state of evolution-denial that would make the average Creationist proud.
    - dalke 12y ago
      What about them? The Inuit are at one extreme. Quoting http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-paleo-diet-half-baked-how-hunter-gatherer-really-eat/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-paleo-diet-hal... : > Which hunter–gatherer tribe are we supposed to mimic, exactly? How do we reconcile the Inuit diet—mostly the flesh of sea mammals—with the more varied plant and land animal diet of the Hadza or !Kung? Chucking the many different hunter–gather diets into a blender to come up with some kind of quintessential smoothie is a little ridiculous. Quoting one of the many counter-arguments from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet : > recent understanding of the human genome has shown that modern humans typically have many copies of the AMY1 gene for starch digestion—suggesting widespread evolutionary adaptation to starch consumption by humans
    - 12y ago
madamepsychosis 12y ago
Anecdata here - as a teen, I had depression. I would take ibuprofen a few times a day when it got really bad, it helped a lot. It would lift my mood from dulled, paralysing rumination to merely sad. I think I started doing it after reading a study like the one in the link. It's a popular theory there are many different diseases that fall under the label 'depression', which is why patients often try multiple antidepressants until one works - perhaps this inflammatory one is just one of them.
- ajcarpy2005 12y ago
  If I may, do you still medicate in the same way, use something different, or has your depression improved, or what?
deleted 12y ago
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manticore_alpha 12y ago
There's honestly a very simple recipe to combat about 85% of depression. The other 15% does require SSRI / therapy / etc. - Clean up your sleep. - Clean up your diet. - Exercise, at full intensity, for 8-15 minutes a day. Weight training mixed in as well. - Get sunlight or supplement with Vitamin D. Oh, and have great friends. That helps.
- babby 12y ago
  >Diet Can reduce inflammation >Sleep Reduces inflammation http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101114161939.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101114161939.ht... >Exercise Reduces inflammation http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22390642 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22390642 >Vitamin D Reduces inflammation http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120223103920.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120223103920.ht... We might have a pattern here.
- alecco 12y ago
  It's sad the only sound advise is down voted yet fad diets by journalists get up voted.
- valas 12y ago
  Yea, not sure why you are getting downvoted. Could anyone comment why downvotes? All sounds like reasonable advice (except that, of course, numbers like 85/15% is a bit handwavy, but I don't think author meant them to be precise).
tasty_freeze 12y ago
What I'm about to say isn't to deny that inflammation might trigger or contribute to depression. In fact, anyone who thinks depressed people are just self-indulgent whiners and that there is no biochemical basis for depression are simply living in the 1950s. My wife has clinical depression. To describe depression, as this article does, as just not wanting to get off the couch is hugely insulting to people with clinical depression. My wife isn't alone in wishing that there was another word for "depression" of the sort arises because your team lost, your dog died, you got passed over for a promotion. Those are disappointing and can be a problem in the short term. Clinical depression is not just not wanting to get off the couch. It is a profound loss of hope, and the inability to even connect with your previous mental state of what it was like to have hope or find things interesting. The present appears fucked, and even after racking your brain for some way out, every path looks even more dismal. Situations in the real world are often complicated and can be interpreted in more than one way, but to a depressed person, the most terrible interpretation is evaluated as being a very likely outcome. And, just like 9/11 conspiracy theorists construct self-consistent theories by bending facts and through selective filtering, clinically depressed people often build an elaborate, self-consistent understanding that, yes, they and their future are completely fucked.
- WalterSear 12y ago
  And even when things are going well, there's no way to feel happiness.
- JohnBooty 12y ago
  My wife isn't alone in wishing that there was another word for "depression" of the sort arises because your team lost, your dog died, you got passed over for a promotion. Those are disappointing and can be a problem in the short term. FWIW, depression resulting from those sorts of events is typically termed "situational depression." Regarding everything else you said: totally on board. And I wish you and your wife lots of strength and luck.
- erikpukinskis 12y ago
  I'm someone who has ranged from what I would call mild to moderate depression. I've had periods approaching year-scale where I found no particular joy and struggled to find any hope. I immersed myself in reading and work, and lived a difficult, one-dimensional life. I have no idea how that compares to your wife's experience. I'm not particularly interested in drawing comparisons. I would like to ask you: why does your wife need a different word? Why not just say one bout of depression is more severe and one is more mild? To me it's the same as autism or cancer or any other sickness. Sometimes it's a challenge, and sometimes it's a wrecking ball through your life. What's inadequate about using an adjective for that?
alecco 12y ago
A lot of Guardian stories around, this one from a very suspicious account.
- coldtea 12y ago
  What's "very suspicious" about the account? Checked, and he's been active for a year and a half, has posted 2 stories, and has participated in the comments a little more. That the 2 stories are both from Guardian could just mean it's one other outlet he regularly reads besides HN. Heck, I read it too, and I'm not even British. Maybe because it's one of the best news sources? (and far better than most US based news outlets). (As if the Guardian needs HN hits...)
- ck425 12y ago
  As coldtea correctly guessed the Guardian is the main other new source I read. I don't see what else is suspicious about my account?
  - alecco 12y ago
    Your account didn't have activity for ages and has only 1 other submission from 320 days ago and last comment from 207 days ago. Sorry if this is not the case.
    - ck425 12y ago
      Ah fair enough. I'm more of lurker as I mainly read HN on my phone which doesn't have an interface for commenting.
fratx 12y ago
"depression, it is still seen as some kind of mental and emotional weakness." I am very sorry, but it is seen as such because it is a weakness. Not that it couldn't be overcome. It may very well be caused by some physical condition, after all the first thing you get usually thought in a psychology course is that it is pointless to view the mind as some abstrakt thing that exists on it's own, you must always consider the biochemical part as well.
xacaxulu 12y ago
"No disease that can be treated by diet should be treated with any other means." ~Maimonides
Spooky23 12y ago
I had a severe back issue that resulted in a lot of inflammation. Inflammation that was tested to levels about 5x of the average 90 year old -- when I was 22! It was pure misery... I would get sick often, get tired, etc. It sucked. When I was given Vioxx for a few weeks, which made me feel like a million bucks!
hristov 12y ago
This is very interesting. Is there any way one can check if one is suffering from inflammation?
- WalterSear 12y ago
  You might as well check for your pulse: inflammation isn't a disease, it's a signaling system used by your body. The problem is that often your body reaction has potential to causes problems of it's own. Think of it like the police. For some things (white person is speeding, deserves a ticket), their reaction can be fine and appropriate. Under other circumstances (black person selling cigarettes illegally), they are more of a problem than the one they are intended to solve.
- Alex3917 12y ago
  Yes, you can just ask your regular doctor to do this for you. Although if you happen to already have a sports medicine doctor, they might be more accustomed to doing these sorts of tests. Harj actually has a post on this here: http://blog.harjtaggar.com/my-experiments-with-preventing-heart-disease http://blog.harjtaggar.com/my-experiments-with-preventing-he... Your inflammation levels can vary a lot throughout the day and week though, so unless you're going to get it measured 10+ times then you're probably not going to get great data. So it might just be easier to look for an open clinical trial that you can enroll in where they will do this for you for free.
coding4all 12y ago
The reason why the word depression is too general is because depression is a normal conceptial state that everyone will endure at least once in life. Real, debilitating, actual depression, is life-long and persist regardless of any one event. It's not just a function of the mind or an emotional relationship related to life, but an absence that can only be described as emotionally detached, sociopathic, and even as an obligation of guilt and doubt simply for existing in a time you can't accept.
panhandlr 12y ago
I like to refer to depression as a cliff that is always one step behind you.
sbierwagen 12y ago
Source article: http://www.biolmoodanxietydisord.com/content/4/1/10 http://www.biolmoodanxietydisord.com/content/4/1/10
nether 12y ago
Criticism of an earlier claim for a depression blood test: http://blogs.plos.org/mindthebrain/2014/09/25/critique-claims-blood-test-depression/ http://blogs.plos.org/mindthebrain/2014/09/25/critique-claim...
thevagrant 12y ago
I absolutely believe depression and inflammation are linked. I have tested this myself (n=1) as I suffer from an ongoing depression. I also have a brother who has withdrawn from the world completely and I would consider that he is highly crippled from depression. My realisation that this problem is linked to inflammation occured a few years ago. My depression was at it's worst and I was barely functioning. I am still not who I was but I'm doing ok. While I was at my worst, I considered that perhaps my diet contributed to my poor health. Through careful testing I discovered that foods with gluten or casein protein caused me to feel awful. After removing these foods 100% from my diet, there was an improvement but certainly not a full recovery. I've always had bad seasonal allergies but I had never considered that my whole body was inflamed. Strangely, by chance, I found that fexofenadine (an antihistamine) would lift my depression temporarily after taking it for a week. If I continued taking it, then slowly the depression came back. My best explanation is that the signaling process of inflammation dampens the ability for my brain to think clearly. Since discovering this, I found other things that helped: I quit caffeine 100% as it seemed to also have a negative effect for me (when for years it lifted my depression, now it's clear I am best to do without). I no longer drink alcohol. I've worked hard to remove sugar and processed foods. I've found that daily running will help lift my depression greatly. Another helpful item I found was licorice tea which I use sparingly. This had powerful anti-inflammatory properties which I have found useful. For years I had very bad sleep habits. I've corrected these and always sleep to a schedule now. Even so, I still rarely wake up feeling rested. I feel much better than I used to and can get by but still do not feel quite right. I'm looking into meditation now. There are a large number of other things (including SSRI's) I've tried/tested but I can't go into all these right now. I've been pretty careful in my experimentation, I have been testing this for years now and know what works for me but I suspect depression has more than a single cause. My best advice to everyone is to exercise, eat healthy and try to lead a balanced lifestyle.
- thevagrant 12y ago
  I just want to add something I forgot to mention. I've also learnt that isolation is generally something best avoided while depressed. It may feel counter intuitive when you are in that state of mind but I've had a spontaneous lift from depression on multiple occasions when I have been in social situations. To withdraw is not a good idea.
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joyofdata 12y ago
To consider "something" as just _in the mind_ v/s being physically rooted is similar too considering software bugs trivial b/c software can easily be changed compared to hardware that is broken. To extend the analogy - asking a depressive patient to just sort it out mentally is like trying to debug a debugger using that same debugger!?
marknutter 12y ago
I wonder if this doesn't also cause the symptoms associated with fibromyalgia. I've always been fairly skeptical about Fibromyalgia but try not to be for the same reasons it's not productive to be skeptical about clinical depression as s disease, but perhaps they are both linked to inflamation.

129 points by ck425 12y ago

The "is" is more of a "might be". But it does seem fairly plausible. (The inverse seems less likely- that depression has absolutely nothing to do with the body.) I'm guessing that as with most complex phenomena, depression has a range of causal factors, and results from an interplay of many things. It will definitely be great if further research in this area helps to lessen the stigma around depression and other ailments.

DiabloD3 12y ago

I think this is extremely possible. During my research into Paleo (which has helped me tremendously, and I suggest anyone who has trouble keeping off the pounds, performing at work, or focusing in life to take a look at it), I've considered the possible link myself, but since I'm not a scientist I didn't have any way of looking into this. However, one of Paleo's major goals is to eliminating inflammation, and Paleo, for a large number of people, have lessened or completely eliminated the symptoms of depression, and I've seriously considered that there has to be some sort of link. Edit: Not sure why I'm getting downvoted here. n=1 experimental data may not be the best thing, but in the absence of studies like the one linked to, its all we have to go on.

deleted 12y ago
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manticore_alpha 12y ago
Don't know why you're being downvoted. I experienced the same results on strict Paleo. Strict as in, absolutely cooking everything myself in Coconut Oil - that strict. I experienced a back injury and got off Predisone and Percocet within a month -- I owe largely to the inflammation reducing effects of the Paleo diet.
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- manticore_alpha 12y ago
  Agree 100% - try getting away from CANOLA oil... nearly impossible.
  - DiabloD3 12y ago
    No it isn't. I did it, I consume zero seed oils.
- DiabloD3 12y ago
  Yes, the Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio is the major mechanism (but not only) for the chronic inflammation caused by the modern diet, and yes, that has been pretty well proved. But theres no major study (besides the submitted link) that I'm aware of that links high inflammation diet to depression, even though, frankly, it's pretty obvious that there is some major link between the two. So, until the above mentioned study happened, it was pretty much just a large collection of n=1 experiments, where people ate strict Paleo and then, well, became supermen (I'm not actually sure how else to describe it; for some, it was absolutely miraculous).
  - tjradcliffe 12y ago
    Fortunately, unless you are an evolution-denialist, you know that human evolution adapted us to a very wide range of dietary factors, so within an extremely broad, shallow optimum pretty much any Omega 6/Omega 3 ratio will do. To argue otherwise would be to say that the human dietary optimum is narrow and deep, which is maximally implausible for an opportunistic hunter-gatherer-scavenger.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  Canola oil has the 2:1 ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 that your first link recommends: The ideal dietary ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 has been recommended by an international panel of lipid experts to be approximately 2:1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC533861/table/T2/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC533861/table/T2/ Canola oil is a good source of Omega-3 fatty acids (ALA). Among vegetable cooking oils, it is the best one. The fat composition is likely 'better' than olive oil.
simplexion 12y ago
You are getting down-voted because Paleo is not scientific.
- DiabloD3 12y ago
  A diet whose only goal is to use science to eat nutritious food that is not toxic in any way and engineer a diet to do so, is not scientific? Explain to me how that works.
  - simplexion 12y ago
    Just because the goal is to use science does not mean it does. It uses evidence where it suits the beliefs of Paleo. This article is well written by an awesome scientist: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/09/10/3842158.htm http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/09/10/3842158.ht...
    - DiabloD3 12y ago
      A quick glance at that article seems its just whats called the Paleo Strawman: it talks about the Paleo name (and how it is connected to the Paleolithic era), but doesn't actually discuss the diet at all and just says "oh, Paleo is wrong because eating what we ate over 10 thousand years ago isn't appropriate for us today", even though the Paleo diet does not say that. The Paleo diet is about reducing inflammation, reducing toxins, and reducing anti-nutrients. The majority of the three of those comes from refined sugars, grains, seed oils, and legumes. What it DOESN'T do is blindly say "oh, our pre-agricultural ancestors ate that so it must be the best thing ever" because that has no place in Paleo as it is not scientific. The article proves that Karl S. Kruszelnicki (I've never heard of him before) has no interest in doing research into what he is writing about, because he does not mention any of what I just said in his article.
      - simplexion 12y ago
        No True Scotsman! Instead of taking a quick glance at the article... actually read it.
hristov 12y ago
Paleo mostly helps because it eliminates refined sugar. It may eliminate some very mild symptoms of depression because sugar causes mild depression after the initial sugar high. Other than eliminating refined sugar, paleo is not very useful and there are much healthier sugar free diets out there. And the scientific justification for paleo is just false. Ancient humans did not eat that much meat. Sorry to rain on your parade, but you put in a mostly off-topic plug for paleo, so a response was justified.
- nether 12y ago
  > And the scientific justification for paleo is just false. Ancient humans did not eat that much meat. What about native Inuit populations whose diets were nearly 100% meat?
  - tjradcliffe 12y ago
    They demonstrate the truth that humans evolved as opportunistic hunter-gatherer-scavengers who can survive comfortably on a huge range of diets, so anyone selling any particular narrowly defined diet--like "Paleo"--as in any way particularly "natural" to humans is in a state of evolution-denial that would make the average Creationist proud.
  - dalke 12y ago
    What about them? The Inuit are at one extreme. Quoting http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-paleo-diet-half-baked-how-hunter-gatherer-really-eat/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-paleo-diet-hal... : > Which hunter–gatherer tribe are we supposed to mimic, exactly? How do we reconcile the Inuit diet—mostly the flesh of sea mammals—with the more varied plant and land animal diet of the Hadza or !Kung? Chucking the many different hunter–gather diets into a blender to come up with some kind of quintessential smoothie is a little ridiculous. Quoting one of the many counter-arguments from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet : > recent understanding of the human genome has shown that modern humans typically have many copies of the AMY1 gene for starch digestion—suggesting widespread evolutionary adaptation to starch consumption by humans
  - 12y ago

madamepsychosis 12y ago

Anecdata here - as a teen, I had depression. I would take ibuprofen a few times a day when it got really bad, it helped a lot. It would lift my mood from dulled, paralysing rumination to merely sad. I think I started doing it after reading a study like the one in the link. It's a popular theory there are many different diseases that fall under the label 'depression', which is why patients often try multiple antidepressants until one works - perhaps this inflammatory one is just one of them.

ajcarpy2005 12y ago
If I may, do you still medicate in the same way, use something different, or has your depression improved, or what?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

manticore_alpha 12y ago

There's honestly a very simple recipe to combat about 85% of depression. The other 15% does require SSRI / therapy / etc. - Clean up your sleep. - Clean up your diet. - Exercise, at full intensity, for 8-15 minutes a day. Weight training mixed in as well. - Get sunlight or supplement with Vitamin D. Oh, and have great friends. That helps.

babby 12y ago
>Diet Can reduce inflammation >Sleep Reduces inflammation http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101114161939.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101114161939.ht... >Exercise Reduces inflammation http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22390642 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22390642 >Vitamin D Reduces inflammation http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120223103920.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120223103920.ht... We might have a pattern here.
alecco 12y ago
It's sad the only sound advise is down voted yet fad diets by journalists get up voted.
valas 12y ago
Yea, not sure why you are getting downvoted. Could anyone comment why downvotes? All sounds like reasonable advice (except that, of course, numbers like 85/15% is a bit handwavy, but I don't think author meant them to be precise).

tasty_freeze 12y ago

What I'm about to say isn't to deny that inflammation might trigger or contribute to depression. In fact, anyone who thinks depressed people are just self-indulgent whiners and that there is no biochemical basis for depression are simply living in the 1950s. My wife has clinical depression. To describe depression, as this article does, as just not wanting to get off the couch is hugely insulting to people with clinical depression. My wife isn't alone in wishing that there was another word for "depression" of the sort arises because your team lost, your dog died, you got passed over for a promotion. Those are disappointing and can be a problem in the short term. Clinical depression is not just not wanting to get off the couch. It is a profound loss of hope, and the inability to even connect with your previous mental state of what it was like to have hope or find things interesting. The present appears fucked, and even after racking your brain for some way out, every path looks even more dismal. Situations in the real world are often complicated and can be interpreted in more than one way, but to a depressed person, the most terrible interpretation is evaluated as being a very likely outcome. And, just like 9/11 conspiracy theorists construct self-consistent theories by bending facts and through selective filtering, clinically depressed people often build an elaborate, self-consistent understanding that, yes, they and their future are completely fucked.

WalterSear 12y ago
And even when things are going well, there's no way to feel happiness.
JohnBooty 12y ago
My wife isn't alone in wishing that there was another word for "depression" of the sort arises because your team lost, your dog died, you got passed over for a promotion. Those are disappointing and can be a problem in the short term. FWIW, depression resulting from those sorts of events is typically termed "situational depression." Regarding everything else you said: totally on board. And I wish you and your wife lots of strength and luck.
erikpukinskis 12y ago
I'm someone who has ranged from what I would call mild to moderate depression. I've had periods approaching year-scale where I found no particular joy and struggled to find any hope. I immersed myself in reading and work, and lived a difficult, one-dimensional life. I have no idea how that compares to your wife's experience. I'm not particularly interested in drawing comparisons. I would like to ask you: why does your wife need a different word? Why not just say one bout of depression is more severe and one is more mild? To me it's the same as autism or cancer or any other sickness. Sometimes it's a challenge, and sometimes it's a wrecking ball through your life. What's inadequate about using an adjective for that?

alecco 12y ago

A lot of Guardian stories around, this one from a very suspicious account.

coldtea 12y ago
What's "very suspicious" about the account? Checked, and he's been active for a year and a half, has posted 2 stories, and has participated in the comments a little more. That the 2 stories are both from Guardian could just mean it's one other outlet he regularly reads besides HN. Heck, I read it too, and I'm not even British. Maybe because it's one of the best news sources? (and far better than most US based news outlets). (As if the Guardian needs HN hits...)
ck425 12y ago
As coldtea correctly guessed the Guardian is the main other new source I read. I don't see what else is suspicious about my account?
- alecco 12y ago
  Your account didn't have activity for ages and has only 1 other submission from 320 days ago and last comment from 207 days ago. Sorry if this is not the case.
  - ck425 12y ago
    Ah fair enough. I'm more of lurker as I mainly read HN on my phone which doesn't have an interface for commenting.

fratx 12y ago

"depression, it is still seen as some kind of mental and emotional weakness." I am very sorry, but it is seen as such because it is a weakness. Not that it couldn't be overcome. It may very well be caused by some physical condition, after all the first thing you get usually thought in a psychology course is that it is pointless to view the mind as some abstrakt thing that exists on it's own, you must always consider the biochemical part as well.

xacaxulu 12y ago

"No disease that can be treated by diet should be treated with any other means." ~Maimonides

Spooky23 12y ago

I had a severe back issue that resulted in a lot of inflammation. Inflammation that was tested to levels about 5x of the average 90 year old -- when I was 22! It was pure misery... I would get sick often, get tired, etc. It sucked. When I was given Vioxx for a few weeks, which made me feel like a million bucks!

hristov 12y ago

This is very interesting. Is there any way one can check if one is suffering from inflammation?

WalterSear 12y ago
You might as well check for your pulse: inflammation isn't a disease, it's a signaling system used by your body. The problem is that often your body reaction has potential to causes problems of it's own. Think of it like the police. For some things (white person is speeding, deserves a ticket), their reaction can be fine and appropriate. Under other circumstances (black person selling cigarettes illegally), they are more of a problem than the one they are intended to solve.
Alex3917 12y ago
Yes, you can just ask your regular doctor to do this for you. Although if you happen to already have a sports medicine doctor, they might be more accustomed to doing these sorts of tests. Harj actually has a post on this here: http://blog.harjtaggar.com/my-experiments-with-preventing-heart-disease http://blog.harjtaggar.com/my-experiments-with-preventing-he... Your inflammation levels can vary a lot throughout the day and week though, so unless you're going to get it measured 10+ times then you're probably not going to get great data. So it might just be easier to look for an open clinical trial that you can enroll in where they will do this for you for free.

coding4all 12y ago

The reason why the word depression is too general is because depression is a normal conceptial state that everyone will endure at least once in life. Real, debilitating, actual depression, is life-long and persist regardless of any one event. It's not just a function of the mind or an emotional relationship related to life, but an absence that can only be described as emotionally detached, sociopathic, and even as an obligation of guilt and doubt simply for existing in a time you can't accept.

panhandlr 12y ago

I like to refer to depression as a cliff that is always one step behind you.

sbierwagen 12y ago

Source article: http://www.biolmoodanxietydisord.com/content/4/1/10 http://www.biolmoodanxietydisord.com/content/4/1/10

nether 12y ago

Criticism of an earlier claim for a depression blood test: http://blogs.plos.org/mindthebrain/2014/09/25/critique-claims-blood-test-depression/ http://blogs.plos.org/mindthebrain/2014/09/25/critique-claim...

thevagrant 12y ago

I absolutely believe depression and inflammation are linked. I have tested this myself (n=1) as I suffer from an ongoing depression. I also have a brother who has withdrawn from the world completely and I would consider that he is highly crippled from depression. My realisation that this problem is linked to inflammation occured a few years ago. My depression was at it's worst and I was barely functioning. I am still not who I was but I'm doing ok. While I was at my worst, I considered that perhaps my diet contributed to my poor health. Through careful testing I discovered that foods with gluten or casein protein caused me to feel awful. After removing these foods 100% from my diet, there was an improvement but certainly not a full recovery. I've always had bad seasonal allergies but I had never considered that my whole body was inflamed. Strangely, by chance, I found that fexofenadine (an antihistamine) would lift my depression temporarily after taking it for a week. If I continued taking it, then slowly the depression came back. My best explanation is that the signaling process of inflammation dampens the ability for my brain to think clearly. Since discovering this, I found other things that helped: I quit caffeine 100% as it seemed to also have a negative effect for me (when for years it lifted my depression, now it's clear I am best to do without). I no longer drink alcohol. I've worked hard to remove sugar and processed foods. I've found that daily running will help lift my depression greatly. Another helpful item I found was licorice tea which I use sparingly. This had powerful anti-inflammatory properties which I have found useful. For years I had very bad sleep habits. I've corrected these and always sleep to a schedule now. Even so, I still rarely wake up feeling rested. I feel much better than I used to and can get by but still do not feel quite right. I'm looking into meditation now. There are a large number of other things (including SSRI's) I've tried/tested but I can't go into all these right now. I've been pretty careful in my experimentation, I have been testing this for years now and know what works for me but I suspect depression has more than a single cause. My best advice to everyone is to exercise, eat healthy and try to lead a balanced lifestyle.

thevagrant 12y ago
I just want to add something I forgot to mention. I've also learnt that isolation is generally something best avoided while depressed. It may feel counter intuitive when you are in that state of mind but I've had a spontaneous lift from depression on multiple occasions when I have been in social situations. To withdraw is not a good idea.

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joyofdata 12y ago

To consider "something" as just _in the mind_ v/s being physically rooted is similar too considering software bugs trivial b/c software can easily be changed compared to hardware that is broken. To extend the analogy - asking a depressive patient to just sort it out mentally is like trying to debug a debugger using that same debugger!?

marknutter 12y ago

I wonder if this doesn't also cause the symptoms associated with fibromyalgia. I've always been fairly skeptical about Fibromyalgia but try not to be for the same reasons it's not productive to be skeptical about clinical depression as s disease, but perhaps they are both linked to inflamation.