Bacteria and depression

Bad is good

An unexpected explanation for the rise of depression

BACTERIA cause disease. The idea that they might also prevent disease is counterintuitive. Yet that is the hypothesis Chris Lowry, of Bristol University, and his colleagues are putting forward in Neuroscience. They think a particular sort of bacterium might alleviate clinical depression.

The chance observation that Dr Lowry followed up to arrive at this conclusion was made by Mary O'Brien, an oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. Dr O'Brien was trying out an experimental treatment for lung cancer that involved inoculating patients with Mycobacterium vaccae. This is a harmless relative of the bugs that cause tuberculosis and leprosy that had, in this case, been rendered even more harmless by killing it. When Dr O'Brien gave the inoculation, she observed not only fewer symptoms of the cancer, but also an improvement in her patients' emotional health, vitality and general cognitive function.

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8956457

Not at all surprising. The link below talks abut a well known parasite (Toxoplasma gondii) that (at least in rats) shows it causes substantial behavioral changes; as in suicidal.

Not to start a heated debate on nature vs. nurture vs. free will, but I think this really shows how "hard wired" things like our supposed great intellect can be. I think we will find many more cases where so called "choices" are in fact free will decisions, but ones with the deck heavily stacked to one outcome.

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/feb/toxoplasma-gondii-culture-sex-ratio/

Interesting stuff.

I suspect that a lot of environmental triggers can modulate the production of serotonin, everything from the levels of nutrients in your blood to external stimuli including light and sound levels. There's ample evidence that bright light helps mediate seasonal affective disorder, a form of depression. The light therapy has a certain duration of efficacy and must be repeated to be effective; I wonder if this will be the same for the bacterial action? Will the bacteria eventually get metabolized, requiring repeat doses?

Fascinating stuff. We're all just bags of chemicals; look what can happen when you add a little spice to the brew.

well, without bacterias in our body as part of the immune system, humans would be long dead by now from sicknesses as insignificant as an ordinary cold so it's not surprising at all.

270winchester said:

well, without bacterias in our body as part of the immune system, humans would be long dead by now from sicknesses as insignificant as an ordinary cold so it's not surprising at all.

Click to expand...

True. Comensal, mutual, and parasitic realtionships within humans have been long understood, but this was completely new. The bacteria in your gut keep things in a nice balance and stop you form getting the run or gas, but here we're talking about direct influence over behavior and determination of the sex of offspring. That's quite a shift in undertstanding.

I always wondered about those 4-5 families in school that has all boys, or all girls. Now I'm scratching my head thinking if it was a little microbe that had that say.

You read cool stuff, cy.

thanks sub_umbra!

cpf folks have shared so much.... it's not possible to pay back...

cy, I was just going to tell you that with one more post you will be at TEN THOUSAND!!! But, then you posted and are still at 9,999 wow!

Thanks for the information. I actually went to college to be a counselor, but did not want to go all the way to getting my Phd in psych. After doing a short internship outside of Rochester, NY (thankfully in the summer not winter) I did not persue any more schooling. So much of our emotional states are from chemicals and other sources beyond our control, that I felt most of the people I would be qualified to help really didn't need me, and the others would need medications and diagnosis more than I was qualified to give.

Thanks again for the post. It is one more reassureance that I made the right choice.

bacteria is not bad

yep.. just noticed I went over 10k in posts... did a mini calibration!!!

cy, shouldn't your *flashaholic* be in ALL CAPS now? Maybe blink or something?

ooooh.... I get two * ... just now noticed!