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Depression: It’s Not All in Your Head
When you feel like shit, something may be happening in your gut
Spoiler Alert! This article contains long Latin words and biological descriptions which may make the information seem irrelevant. Trust me, they address a new approach to depression that might ultimately help those of us who suffer from it.
New directions in depression
For years, we have heard that depression is the result of a “chemical imbalance.” Psychiatric approaches have identified chemicals, like serotonin and dopamine, that are “out of whack” in depression sufferers, and they have devised medicines to correct the deficits. And while many people have been helped by these medicines, there are still questions about the nature of depression, and its causes, which addressed, could lead to treatments that are more targeted, effective and comprehensive.
The past years have moved the emphasis from the simplistic “A causes B” understanding of causality, and demonstrated how illness throughout our bodies is bi-directional — involving a “conversation” between diseases that routinely occur together and influence the way they are experienced by sufferers and how they respond to treatment.
