Serious autoimmune diseases and infections really are a detriment to your own mental health, based on a new study in The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) that found 45 percent of people with serious infections are likely to suffer with depression. The report also says that the threat of developing a mental illness is 62 percent higher for people who have experienced serious illnesses than those who didn’t possess a serious infection.

The study was headed by Michael Eriksen Benr’s, MD, PhD, a senior researcher at National Centre for Register-based Research, Aarhus University Mental Health Center Copenhagen, Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark, with data drawn from the Danish longitudinal registers. Researchers followed a total of 3.56 million people born between 1945 and 1996 from January 1, 1977 through December 2010. 91,637, of that group had been seen in the hospital for mood disorders.!

The research looked at mood disorders that happened during treatment and those surfaced after treatment.

“We included all forms of hospital contacts with illnesses, except HIV/AIDS,” Dr. Benr’s said. “All included types of illnesses which were correlated with a higher risk of mood disorders; nonetheless, sepsis (infection in the blood), hepatitis infection (disease in the liver) and urogenital infections were connected together with the most elevated danger of mood disorders.”

“In total, we examined 30 different autoimmune diseases that have been a part of the registers,” he explained, noting that autoimmune hepatitis, systemic lupus erythematosus, celiac disease, multiple sclerosis, Type 1 diabetes and psoriasis were a few of the autoimmune diseases linked to the most elevated risk of following mood disorders.

Benr’s clarified infectious diseases and inflammation can affect the mind through several pathways:

• “Infections and inflammation can raise the permeability of the blood-brain barrier that shields the brain, making the brain more vulnerable to immune components or other substances in the blood.”
• “Some infectious agents also can invade the brain directly. And peripheral nerves can also be impacted by inflammation and thus affecting the brain.”
• “The gut microbioma may also be affected by infections or the possible medical treatment, which may have an effect on your brain also.”

He said that the researchers’ findings support results from smaller studies indicating that immune responses might impact the mind in ways that raise the risk of mood disorders.

Amesh A. Adalja, MD, FACP, clinical assistant professor in the department of Emergency Medicine and adjunct instructor in the office of Infectious Diseases at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said that the study supports what clinicians in infectious disease see all the time:

“It validates what we understand, that any time a man experiences a serious illness there are repercussions that continue to change patients even after they recover from the acute sickness,” he said. “And we’ve understood that individuals who’ve septic shock which is sort of an end phase of many infectious diseases, bacteria or viral have plenty of mental and psychological conditions that occur after their infection.”

What is the Physiological Process?

Dr. Adalja clarified that the immune system is compromised in these infectious diseases and the body cannot protect itself, and occasionally fights itself, affecting brain chemistry and leading to depression.

“When you’ve got an illness or an immune disorder, the immune system is turned on — whether it’s by infection or because it’s attacking itself from an autoimmune disease — lots of inflammatory molecules are secreted as the body is ramping up its shields,” described Adalja. “Those molecules work on caring for the disease and when they do take care of the infection that creates inflammation — redness or fever or swelling. Those are all markers of immune activation occurring. Additionally they have some skill to change brain chemistry. They can create alterations of your brain chemistry and that’s how you get melancholy. “

In addition, some treatments for infectious diseases are known to cause melancholy but treatment is unable to be prevented or changed, so mood disorders must be medicated once the medical disaster has subsided and following the disease infection is treated.

“For example, in Hepatitis C we treat Hepatitis C together with the drug Interferon,” said Adalja. “Interferon is an all-natural substance that is produced by your body but we administer it exogenously for treating hepatitis C and it helps clear the virus in the body. And depression is a well-known side effect of interferon therapy. You really have to screen people before you place them on interferon. And during treatment to look for signs of depression that will be occurring because of the interferon. You can find still cases of individuals committing suicide. “

Researchers Say Cause IsN’t Clear

Benr’s said it is still unclear to researchers it may cause mood disorders, and precisely what the connection is between infectious disease as well as the brain. Underlying genetic, emotional, or nonimmune-associated mechanisms have to be considered. “Previous research has indicated that there appear to be a bidirectional relationship between the immune system as well as the brain, where mental strain for example may make a man more likely to get illnesses,” he added.

Adalja points out that being sick may also wear people down physically and emotionally.

“When an affliction hits a specific threshold it places someone at a risk factor for depression,” Adalja said. “Depression can be activated with a substantial life event. And serious sickness is a significant life occasion.”

“The other factor is either a biological mechanism,” he said. “We know that they’re in critical illness and during severe infectious disease the entire body’s immune system discharges a lot of distinct substances so that you can battle the infection. Some of those side effects of these molecules may be to change the brain chemistry in this way that they’re much more likely to have depression. “