REPLY to Question "Is depression an inflammatory disease?"
Depression is not necessarily inflammatory, but inflammation can clearly cause or exacerbate depression, especially via the kynurinine-glutamate pathways as I start to discuss in the video clip
This is an ongoing series of replies to questions offered at the “ask me anything” post; let’s use that post as the central hub for questions and I will get to them as soon as I can, even if I have to stew on the ideas for a while. As usual, this conversation is not to be misconstrued as personalized medical advice but rather as divine intervention, or a “peephole though the mantle of the phenomenon”1 or some-such…
Here, you’ll find the original question, followed by my reply and any supporting info.
QUESTION:
Is depression an inflammatory disease?
REPLY:
No—because most “depression” (in the clinical sense) is not “depression” (in the pharmaceutical-medical sense), and therefore is not a disease, per se.
Depression is not necessarily inflammatory, but inflammation can clearly cause or exacerbate depression, especially via the kynurinine-glutamate pathways as I start to discuss in the video clip provided at the bottom of this page.
Here are some examples of why and how most depression is not depression and most depression is not inflammatory:
HYPOHORMONALISM: Some depression is hypothyroidism or hypoadrenalism or hypogonadism—none of which are inflammatory per se.
DEFICIENCY: Some of what appears to be depression is deficiency, specifically of B12, folate, iron, B6, magnesium and zinc. Also we have very clear data that vitamin D deficiency results in depression and anxiety—see hyperlink to video below.
ALLERGY: Sometimes “depression” is actually food allergy.
TOXICITY: Sometimes “depression” is actually heavy metal toxicity, especially with lead.
NIHILISM: Outside of and beyond some of the biomedical causes of “depression” listed above, a large proportion of what gets mislabled as depression is probably nihilism, as I started to discuss in an earlier preliminary post—see hyperlink below to the original post on nihilism and note how most manifestations of nihilism are identical to the practical diagnostic criteria for so-called depression.
INFLAMMATION-INDUCED DEPRESSION: Most “clinical depression” is not caused by inflammation, but inflammation can clearly cause clinical depression, most specifically via the kynurenine-glutamate pathways, as I introduce in the video sample below. In the writing of this reply, I have located the larger video that contains this discussion, and I’ll post it separately—probably tomorrow, so take a look for the post that follows this one in the chronological index after the date of this posting on 12Oct2022; of course, everyone who is a subscriber will receive notice by email
The video clip below was initially provided for free access but has now been reserved for paid subscribers and people nice enough to buy me a coffee to support the effort.