C-reactive protein is a sign of inflammation MOLEKUUL/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Alamy
People with depression have higher levels of inflammation in their bodies than those who don’t have the condition, but it is unclear whether this is due to genes that indicate a predisposition for depression, or because depression can lead to behaviours that trigger inflammation.
Cathryn Lewis at King’s College London and her colleagues used data from the UK Biobank, which holds medical and genetic information on half a million people, to investigate this link. They compared 26,894 people who had been diagnosed with depression at some point…
