Heard on Radio 4 this morning of a book which argues for a physical rather than psychological link between inflammatory illness and depression. It seems, if I understood this correctly, that it was previously thought that there was some sort of barrier preventing this. Medics among you will understand this better than I but I'm going to try to have a look at the book which is The Inflamed Mind by Edward Bullmore based on his research at King's (London, I think).
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maria40
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I'm not surprised. We are learning, for example, that our gut microbiome has a huge role to play in our health, and imbalances there can even lead to mental changes such as anxiety and depression. We are truly what we eat!
Given that so many aspects of what is regarded as 'psychological' illnesses have in retrospect been revealed as impossibly culturally and historically 'rooted' ('hysteria' in women is a prime example of a mingling of limited physiological and very sexist attitudes towards women and their 'capacities') - then it would be great to see some more evidence of more 'scientific' physiological determinants. This is not to say of course that there isn't some subjective and perceptual experience going on with all of us - all the time - but we need a larger context -for understanding our health. Mind you the unsophisticated form of 'biological determinism' cultivated in the 19th Century with its production of racism and sex discrimination is also very culpable and not to be emulated. We need whole new interconnected ways of thinking about everything !!
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