What if depression rhymes with infection? According to Dr Turhan Canli, researcher at Stony Brook University in New York (United States), some bacteria, viruses or parasites could be the cause of major depression.
Defended with supporting scientific studies, his hypothesis was the subject of an article in the scientific journal Biology of Mood and Anxiety Disorders.
Signs that suggest an infection
According to the researcher, the depression strongly resembles, in some ways, a microbial infection in the brain. Thus, despite decades of research, and many antidepressant treatments, recurrences are frequent. Depressed patients adopt a behavior similar to that of sick people, notably through their lack of energy, their difficulty getting out of bed or their loss of interest.
Finally, biomarkers signaling inflammation can sometimes correspond to the activation of the immune system that takes place during a germ infection.
Several supporting studies
If Dr. Turhan’s hypothesis is not based on any direct certainty, the latter is based on several recent scientific studies which highlight a link between microbes and depression.
Thus, in 2012, in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, an American study showed that the parasite Toxoplasma gondij, present in latent form in 10 to 20% of the population, was associated with an increased risk of attempted suicide in people. infected. They could be up to 7 times more likely to want to kill themselves than others. People with a cat, a natural carrier of the germ, would thus be at greater risk of being infected, and therefore more at risk of thinking about suicide.
On the other hand, Dr Turhan evokes the influence of gut microbiome, pointing out that certain bacteria in our digestive system could be another cause of depression or emotional changes. In a meta-analysis of 28 studies cited by the researcher, certain viruses, such as herpes virus, were also identified as potentially responsible for depression.
For the author, the human body should be rethought as an ecosystem in its own right for microorganisms. The human genome would then be a host for non-human DNA sequences belonging to various microbes.
With this article, the author intends to stimulate research on the subject, and hopes to see the emergence of comparative studies between depressed patients and “healthy” controls in an attempt to identify a possible infectious origin.
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