Can Being Sick Cause Depression?

Depression is an extreme mood disorder that can cause immense amounts of sadness and loss of activity/ participation in life. Depression is very serious and can change an individual completely. When people are depressed they don’t know to do anything or socialize. It alters your behavior and you no longer see the good in most things. There obviously are a lot of causes of depression, but I came across a very interesting article that questions whether or not depression can be triggered by viruses.

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On the Harvard Health Blog, there was a paragraph stated about a group of researchers looking into this hypothesis. They carefully dissected a Danish data base that contains every person born in the country by a registration number.The data base consists of information and records of peoples health related issues. In the blog post “Infection, Autoimmune Disease Linked to Depression” by Patrick Skerrett, he says the following: “Among Danes born between 1945 and 1995, almost 92,000 had a mood disorder. Of these, 36,000 had suffered a severe infection or developed an autoimmune disease (such as type 1 diabetes, celiac disease, lupus, and the like) at some point before being diagnosed with the mood disorder… The researchers estimated that in the Danish population, severe infection and autoimmune disease account for 12% of mood disorders.” (Infection, 1).

Infections and viruses, along with the medication provided to help cure the, can cause inflammation in many parts of the body. Cytokines in our body become active when we swell up or inflame. Studies show that cytokines change how brain cells communicate. Cells begin to attack nerves and healthy parts of the body instead of fighting off the unhealthy cells that make people sick. This can also show that a virus can cause depression.

Sources:

1.) Skerrett, Patrick J. “Infection, Autoimmune Disease Linked to Depression – Harvard Health Blog.” Harvard Health Blog RSS. N.p., 17 June 2013. Web. 04 Dec. 2014. <http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/infection-autoimmune-disease-linked-to-depression-201306176397>

2.) Gregoire, Carolyn. “Why This Psychologist Thinks Depression Is An Infectious Disease.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 02 Dec. 2014. Web. 04 Dec. 2014.<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/02/depression-infectious-dis_n_6172074.html>

3 thoughts on “Can Being Sick Cause Depression?

  1. Alison B Mamtsis

    This is a really interesting concept that i’ve never thought of before, but definitely sounds plausible. The study you found is clearly lacking, it’s observational and lacks the ability to rule out reverse causation or third variables. I feel as though there is definitely a concrete study that could be done with patients with chronic diseases to monitor their brains in respect to depression. It makes sense that someone with a chronic illness, who has to be taking a lot of medicine and is probably feeling weak and can’t be fully independent starts to become a little sad, and in some cases even depressed. This is an article i found that further explains this concept. However, it also seems to make sense that reverse causation is possible. If you are depressed, and maybe not taking care of yourself, your immune system is not functioning at its highest power and you may be more susceptible to illness.

  2. Macy Cellitti

    In your second paragraph, it sounds like those two variables (illness and depression) could just be two random factors that don’t influence each other. Also, you’re third paragraph is kind of confusing and lacking detail. I don’t really understand how you made the conclusions you did. I was following you until the last sentence. How do cells attacking nerves and healthy parts of the body prove that a virus can cause depression? Maybe you could add more detail before the deadline! It really is an interesting topic and I would love to understand it better.

  3. Kendall Agosto

    This is a very interesting study! While reading this, I started to think about reverse causation. Instead of disease causing depression, it is possible that depression causes disease. Doctors have found that depression cause effect your immune system making it harder for your body to fight off illness. It can also cause vaccines to be less effective for people with depression. Depression has also be linked to heart disease. So in these findings, depression causes illness.

    http://www.webmd.com/depression/how-depression-affects-your-body

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