FUNCTIONAL MEDICINE BLOG
Includes over 800 monographs reporting on emerging studies in the medical and scientific literature of practical clinical importance, easily searched for content.
Mood disorders and thyroid autoimmunity
Mood disorders and thyroid autoimmunity are linked by aberrant levels of hematopoietic/neuronal growth factors...even before hypothyroidism has developed, and also in relatives of thyroid autoimmunity subjects, growth factors necessary for healthy brain function are at levels associated with a range of mood disorders including bipolar, depression and psychosis. They also include an important reminder that antibodies can predict clinical disease years in advance.
Eating disorders and the causative role of autoimmunity
Eating disorders are multifactorial; like other psychiatric conditions the causative role of auotimmune neuroinflammation is coming to the fore as evidenced by a study just published in PLoS One.
Neuropsychiatric illness, autoimmunity and the role of microbes
Neuropsychiatric illness often involves brain inflammation for which there may be an autoimmune origin. The authors of a paper* recently published in Current Opinion in Rheumatology set out to..."illustrate how microbes might participate in the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric illness by triggering the production of autoantibodies that bind to brain targets."