Depression could be treated using anti-inflammatory drugs,scientists now believe, after determining that it is a physical illness caused by a faulty immune system.
Around one in 13 people in Britain suffers from anxiety or depression and last year the NHS issued 64.7 million prescriptions for antidepressants, double the amount given out a decade ago.
A raft of recent papers, and unexpected results from clinical trials, have shown that treating inflammation seems to alleviate depression.
Watch this @BBCNews piece on how we are helping to change public perception and find new treatments for Depression https://t.co/b7MDUNAmyn
— Biodep (@bio_dep) May 22, 2017
When the journalist Bryony Gordon wrote about her struggle with depression she was taken aback by her readers’ reaction. In her memoir Mad Girl she recalls: ‘Of all the subjects I had written about in my career, not one of them had elicited a response like this… I received hundreds and hundreds of messages from people sharing their own stories of mental illness. Strangers sent me cards. Friends I had always seen as upbeat and jolly, who had probably always seen me as upbeat and jolly, pulled me to on