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Factors Related to the Humoral Immunity in Depression

Mood states has been observed to influence the vulnerability of human to the physical illnesses for two thousand years ago. At 200 A.D. Galen described that breast cancer was found more often in melancholic women. Heretofore, depression has been known to be deeply related to the morbidity of a certain medical illnesses like cancer, infection and allergic disorders which seem to be caused by changes in immunologic mechanism. However, changes of immunologic systems in depression have not been systematically studied, especially of the humoral immunity. Therefore, I look for a change in the humoral immunity in depressed patients by quantitative determination of Igusing single radial immunodiffusion method. IgG, IgA and IgM concentrations were measured in sera from sixty-three depressed patients who visited department of Neuropsychiatry, Dong-Eui University Medical Center during early November, 1990 to late May, 1991. Besides, the correlations of variables like age, sex and severity of depression rated by BD I, HDS and CES-D with the Ig levels were tested to speculate whether the immunologic changes are primary or secondary to depression. Results of this study indicated, to the statistically significant degree, decrease in Ig G (P < 0 . 005) and increase in IgM (P<0.005). However, there could be found no significant correlation of variables like age，sex and severity of depression withIg levels.