2024-02-03 10:25:09
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Many people in Germany suffer from depression. A Charité professor has now made a groundbreaking discovery while researching the causes. © IMAGO/Julia Cumes
Many people in Germany suffer from depression. While researching the causes, a Charité professor has now made a groundbreaking discovery.
Bremen – It has been known for a long time: depression is a widespread disease. According to the German Depression Aid, around 8.2 percent of adults in Germany suffer from it. Now the treatment of depression may be in for a paradigm shift. Stefan Gold, head of new biopsychiatry at the renowned Berlin University Hospital Charité, has now made a spectacular discovery: so-called “zombie cells” play a crucial role. In an interview with Spektrum.de he explains details.
Mysterious illness depression: New findings give hope
According to current research, the disease depression is usually due to a deficiency of the neurotransmitter serotonin and norepinephrine in the brain. The disease is treated accordingly with so-called antidepressants, which are intended to specifically correct the deficit – with success: the treatment works for at least around 50 percent of patients. Nevertheless, Charité Professor Gold has his doubts as to whether the lack of messenger substances in the nervous system is actually the trigger for depression. For him, other messenger substances are becoming the focus of his research: namely those that initiate or maintain inflammation in the body.
Who does not know it? If a severe cold or flu is approaching, you often become more tense, in a bad mood and feel mentally unstable in the days before the infection – similar to depression, explains Gold to spektrum.de. A behavior that is known as “sickness behavior” and has been shown to be triggered by inflammatory substances. For the Charité professor, this is a completely logical arrangement of nature: Anyone who has an infectious disease should, sensibly, go into “social withdrawal,” as he calls it. But another aspect is crucial to his thesis that inflammation levels play a much larger role in the disease depression. And that’s where the so-called zombie cells come into play, which are also linked to premature skin aging and cancer, as fr.de reports.
Inflammation could play an important role in depression
Gold refers to a study with mice: fat mice not only developed metabolic problems, but also became depressed. In their brains, researchers found large amounts of “zombie cells” that produced unscheduled inflammatory substances. When these zombie cells were specifically switched off, the depression in the mice also disappeared. From the example of “sickness behavior” and the mouse study, Gold draws the conclusion that inflammatory messengers or an excess of fat cells, which then produce inflammatory substances, can possibly contribute to the development of depressive symptoms.
What is depression?
From a medical perspective, depression is a serious illness that has a major impact on the way people feel, think and act. It can be associated with disruption of brain and other body functions. Depression is manifested by a low mood, lack of motivation and negative thoughts.
Source: German Depression Aid and Suicide Prevention Foundation
And he puts forward another interesting argument for his thesis: According to Gold, people with high blood pressure are particularly likely to suffer from depression. However, those affected often know nothing about their illness, as high blood pressure often has no symptoms at all, but their risk of developing depression is increased fourfold. This may be due to a common denominator: inflammatory processes in the body.
Discovery with consequences: Depression can be triggered by biological processes
This means nothing less than that biological processes can trigger depression, at least in some of those affected. It would mean that it is not just genetic dispositions or stressful childhood experiences that can be blamed for the disease. But as Gold also emphasizes: This thesis must now be pursued further in therapy studies.
The cause of depression has not been fully understood since research began in the 1950s. The disease remains too multifaceted and complex to break down the cause into a simple answer. Nevertheless, the new approach that the Charité professor is pursuing could shed significantly more light on the matter.
If you or someone you know is suffering from an existential life crisis or depression, please contact the telephone counseling service on 0800-1110111. Help with depression and other psychological emergency situations is also available at www.deutsche-depressionshilfe.de.
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