Research: A Bidirectional Link Between Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Depression

[Luke Luke]

https://neurosciencenews.com/ibd-depression-20724/

Abstract: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jgh.15855

Summary: Patients diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease are 9 times more likely to develop depression than those without IBD. Those with depression are twice as likely to develop inflammatory bowel disease, a new study reports.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic condition involving inflammation of the digestive tract, affecting some 1.6 million Americans. Depression affects more than 16 million Americans.

A new study from Keck Medicine of USC shows that patients diagnosed with IBD were nine times as likely to develop depression than the general population. In addition, their siblings who did not suffer from IBD were almost two times as likely to develop depression.

Conversely, patients with depression were two times as likely to develop IBD, and their siblings without depression were more than one and a half times as likely to develop IBD.

“This research reveals a clinical overlap between both conditions, and is the first study to investigate the two-way association between IBD and depression in siblings,” said Bing Zhang, MD, a gastroenterologist with Keck Medicine and co-lead author of the study.

Zhang and his fellow researchers analyzed the data of more than 20 million people from Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database, which contains comprehensive medical information on more than 99% of Taiwanese residents.

For 11 years, they tracked patients with either IBD or depression and their siblings without either condition, comparing onset of depression or IBD with a control group of people without either condition, but with similar age, sex and socioeconomic status.

Zhang hypothesizes that many factors may contribute to the bidirectional nature of the disorders, including environmental stressors, the gut microbiome (consisting of bacteria, fungi and viruses) and genetics.

“The finding that people with IBD are more prone to depression makes sense because IBD causes constant gastrointestinal symptoms that can be very disruptive to a patient’s life,” he said. “And the elevated depression risk among siblings of IBD patients may reflect caregiver fatigue if the siblings have a role in caring for the patient.”

What surprised researchers was that patients with depression were prone to IBD. Zhang speculates that this discovery may have to do with what is known as the gut-brain axis, a scientifically established connection between the gastrointestinal system and the central nervous system, which consists of the spinal cord and the brain.

For example, he said, inflammation of the brain, which plays a role in depression, may be linked to the inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, a hallmark of IBD.

The researchers are not sure why siblings of patients with depression are more likely to be diagnosed with IBD. Zhang surmises that there may be a shared genetic susceptibility for either disease that presents differently in family members.

Zhang hopes that the study findings will encourage health care professionals to take both family history and the relationship between gastrointestinal and mood disorders into consideration when evaluating or treating patients with either IBD or depression.

Through more research and better understanding of the gut-brain axis, he envisions leveraging the newfound connection between the conditions to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of IBD and mental disorders.

The study was supported by grants from the Taipei Veterans General Hospital and the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan.

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Luke

[Jeffer05]

I know I like to post replies at the top. That's how my email works - ha!

No surprise that having a debilitating disease would make a person prone
to depression. Not only debilitating but one involving pooping which is
often a taboo subject that people feel embarrassed to talk about.

IBD has the result of causing extreme anxiety due to the symptoms and
also often not knowing what to do. I have often thought I'd rather have
my left arm cut off than to have IBD. That's because when you wake up
each day you pretty much know what you are dealing with if you lose your
arm. But with IBD you often have no idea of how good or bad things are
going to be. What awful embarrassing moments are going to happen. How
are you going to get to work on the subway without soiling yourself.

I could be wrong but I've often thought it is one of the worst diseases
to have to deal with psychologically due to how the symptoms manifest. I
also feel it put a huge kibosh on my social life as you can't trust your
self to go out anywhere where there is not a clean restroom within a 10
min radius. I just stopped going places a lot of the time. So lack of
social contact can lead to depression too.

One thing I did find was an online virtual world called Second Life. I
met a lot of great people and did a lot of things in that virtual world.
People even have relationships, go dancing, listen to lectures. I took
classes in Buddhism even. And of course there is a lot of adult activity
wink wink, haha! A lot of people there have disabilities but in the
virtual world it doesn't matter, no one knows unless you choose to tell
them. It kind of levels the playing field. Plus there are a lot of
talented musicians and performers who play shows or concerts there, I
played it for about 10 year and met a lot of great people. People from
all walks of life. But then one day I decided I need to get back into
the Real World and interact with actual people face to face. But the
virtual world can really help a lot if people are house bound and can't
get out much. There is a lot of support there for sure and a lot of fun
things to do as well. Maybe this is all a side note but it could help
someone!

Thanks,
Jeff N