Targeting inflammation as a way to treat depression ^{CEFR B2}

The study is a federally funded systematic review and meta-analysis published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. The systematic review included 19 studies and the meta-analysis included 14. Researchers examined 19 clinical trials in which people with depression and high inflammation received various anti-inflammatory drugs or placebo for periods lasting up to 12 weeks.

Overall, anti-inflammatory treatments reduced depressive symptoms and eased anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure. The analysis also found no increase in serious side effects among people who received anti-inflammatory drugs, a result that supports further investigation of anti-inflammatory approaches in selected patients.

Co-first author Annelise Madison, assistant professor of clinical psychology and affiliate member in the University of Michigan Eisenberg Family Depression Center, said: “This is an important finding that has the potential to make the emerging field of immunopsychiatry more relevant.” Immunopsychiatry studies connections between the immune system and mental health. The authors cautioned that these drugs are not approved by the FDA to treat depression, so psychiatric use would currently be off-label.

Madison suggested the results may help explain earlier mixed findings about anti-inflammatory treatments, because trials that did not select people by inflammatory status could miss benefits in a mixed group. Additional researchers from Harvard University and Emory University contributed to the work. Support came from the National Institute for Mental Health, a L.I.F.E. Foundation Research Grant, Harvard University’s Mind Brain Behavior Interfaculty Initiative, and the Massachusetts General Hospital Translational Clinical Research Center’s Early Career Investigator Award. Source: University of Michigan; appeared on Futurity.