https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/depressi...e-paradox/
KEY POINTS: Since the 1980s, treatments for major depressive disorder have improved and become more available. Despite these improvements, the prevalence of depression in recent decades has largely remained stagnant. A recent review found that depression treatments seem to be less effective than prior research suggests, and that research on depression treatments suffers from biases and other methodological problems. (MORE - details)
Global spread of autoimmune disease blamed on western diet (junk food)
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022...stern-diet
EXCERPTS: More and more people around the world are suffering because their immune systems can no longer tell the difference between healthy cells and invading micro-organisms. Disease defences that once protected them are instead attacking their tissue and organs.
[...] “Numbers of autoimmune cases began to increase about 40 years ago in the west,” James Lee told the Observer. “However, we are now seeing some emerge in countries that never had such diseases before.
For example, the biggest recent increase in inflammatory bowel disease cases has been in the Middle East and east Asia. Before that they had hardly seen the disease.”
Autoimmune diseases range from type 1 diabetes to rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and multiple sclerosis. In each case, the immune system gets its wires crossed and turns on healthy tissue instead of infectious agents.
In the UK alone, at least 4 million people have developed such conditions [...] “Human genetics hasn’t altered over the past few decades,” said Lee, who was previously based at Cambridge University. “So something must be changing in the outside world in a way that is increasing our predisposition to autoimmune disease.”
This idea was backed by Carola Vinuesa, who was previously based at the Australian National University. She pointed to changes in diet that were occurring as more and more countries adopted western-style diets and people bought more fast food.
“Fast-food diets lack certain important ingredients, such as fibre, and evidence suggests this alteration affects a person’s microbiome – the collection of micro-organisms that we have in our gut and which play a key role in controlling various bodily functions,” Vinuesa said.
“These changes in our microbiomes are then triggering autoimmune diseases, of which more than 100 types have now been discovered.”
Both scientists stressed that individual susceptibilities were involved in contracting such illnesses, ailments that also include celiac disease as well as lupus, which triggers inflammation and swelling and can cause damage to various organs, including the heart... (MORE - missing details)