Chronic Exposure to Systemic Inflammation May Increase Risk for Affective Disorders
THURSDAY, July 3, 2025 -- For individuals with specific autoimmune conditions, there appears to be an increased risk for affective disorders, according to a study published online June 9 in BMJ Mental Health.
Arish Mudra Rakshasa-Loots, Ph.D., from the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, and colleagues examined whether people living with chronic inflammatory conditions experience mental health issues at higher rates than others in an observational study using data from 1,563,155 adults living in the United Kingdom. Participants were categorized as those with self-reported lifetime diagnoses of six autoimmune conditions and those without these diagnoses (37,808 and 1,525,347, respectively).
The researchers found that people with autoimmune conditions had a significantly higher lifetime prevalence of self-reported lifetime diagnoses of any affective disorder (depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety) than among those in the general population (28.8 versus 17.9 percent); similar trends were seen for individual affective disorders. People with autoimmune conditions also had a higher prevalence of current depressive symptoms (18.6 versus 10.5 percent) and current anxiety symptoms (19.9 versus 12.9 percent). Compared with the general population, this group had higher odds of experiencing affective disorders (odds ratio, 1.86); the odds remained elevated after adjustment for age, sex, and ethnicity (odds ratio, 1.75) and also for household income, parental history of affective disorders, chronic pain status, and frequency of social interactions (odds ratio, 1.48).
"Future studies should seek to determine whether putative biological, psychological, and social factors -- for example, chronic pain, fatigue, sleep or circadian disruptions and social isolation -- may represent potentially modifiable mechanisms linking autoimmune conditions and affective disorders," the authors write.
Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.
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