Down in the dumps? Blame your Immune System!

Over the past few years, researchers have discovered evidence suggesting that the immune system is the source of depression.  While conducting studies, researchers saw that people with depression tend to have higher levels of inflammation than people without depression.  As a result, researchers have concluded that depression is an evolutionary adaptation.  They’ve concluded that evolution and genetics have bound together depressive symptoms and physiological responses.  This link allowed early humans to be able to fight infection, the major cause of death in humans' early history.  This discovery also helps explain whey stress is a risk factor for depression.  When a person receives a wound, the person becomes stressed in order to signal to the immune system that it should anticipate an infection resulting from the wound.  If the person didn’t become stressed, the immune system would not be as prepared for infection.

This new discovery is very interesting because it could potentially lead to further research and discoveries about depression and its causes.  Furthermore, with this information, scientists may be able to better treat people with depression.  Instead of relying solely on antidepressants, treatments that are normally used to treat inflammation may be able to be used.  It clear that depression will not every be completely eliminated; however, this new research shows that depression can actually have some benefits to humans.