Low grade inflammation and depression.

There is more and more evidence that low grade inflammation is involved in all chronic conditions. Low grade systemic inflammation, as it is called, means inflammation that affects the whole body. This type of inflammation does not have to give you any visible signs like a swollen joint, like we usually associate with inflammation, that’s why we may not be aware of it. There are however ways to measure it.

One of the markers of low grade inflammation is called highly sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP). There are also other inflammatory markers, but hs-CRP is easy to test for and reasonably priced.

The reviewed research is interesting since the connection between low grade inflammation and depression was investigated using CRP (Wium-Andersen MK, et al. 2012). This was a large study including 73,131 participants, both men and women aged 20 to 100 years and was conducted in Denmark.

The results showed as CRP levels increased, so did the risk for psychological distress and depression. This means that the risk for psychological distress and depression is increasing as low grade inflammation is increasing.

Does this mean that the best solution is anti-inflammatory drugs? No, anti-inflammatory drugs were meant to be taken short term, taken long term they can cause serious side effects from ulcers to cardiovascular disease.

The best way of dealing with this would be to first make changes to the way you eat, because that can be very effective in reducing low grade inflammation.

The “Learn to Eat” program explains how you can implement a very effective way of eating which also will make you lose weight if you need to, without even trying.