I was lucky enough to be able to attend a presentation at the Royal Society of Medicine recently about the causes of depression. We tend to think that clinical depression is ‘all in the mind’ and that there is perhaps only a tenuous link with physical health.

The meeting that I attended turned this on its head and the various presenters put forward clinical data and research to prove that depressive symptoms can be caused by an imbalance in the body, specifically an excess of inflammation. Having read Professor Ed Bullmore’s book, The Inflamed Mind (2018), I was keen to find out more.

First of all we do need to recognise that depression is a very complex issue. It is a blanket term and the illness itself can present itself differently in each individual who suffers from it. Furthermore there are usually many factors predisposing someone to depression including inherited traits, difficult and challenging circumstances, poverty and childhood trauma, to name a few. It is important that each case is considered individually in order to best find the right treatment.

The meeting I attended put forward another suggestion that imbalance in the body, particularly inflammation, may also be responsible for causing depression. One could argue that suffering with arthritis would lead you to feel depressed but data and research put forward by the presenters suggested that the inflammation was a direct causal factor in clinical depression. To this end there are clinical trials taking place this year to explore the use of anti-inflammatory medication in depression which, some felt, would lead to much better results than the existing anti-depressant drugs which are used.

This is a really interesting development in the field of mental health and in a sense acknowledges the direct link between the body and the mind. It will probably be some time before we can see the new drugs on the market place but we are at liberty to look at other causes of inflammation, namely poor diet, lack of exercise and poor stress management. We already acknowledge the fact that an unhealthy lifestyle causes damage to the body. Now we have very real proof that it can negatively affect the mind too.

Best wishes,
Wendy x