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The immune system doesn't just keep the body healthy, it has a role in keeping the mind healthy too. [Photo: Bigstock]

It’s the immune system, dummy

Are we becoming more anti-social? Are we less likely to love our neighbours and show kindness strangers, to welcome social diversity and simply trust in humanity?

If the recent world news is anything to go by, it would seem so.

Worse, being anti-social can become a vicious circle; prolonged loneliness and isolation can transform the brain in a way that makes those who suffer it less able to relate to others.

Our increasing lack of sociability is often blamed on modern technology and certainly there is some evidence to suggest that increasing use of ‘social networks’ actually makes us less social.

But what if the problem was closer to home? What if it was in our blood and our bones and our gut?

Connecting body and mind

A couple of years ago scientists at the University of Cambridge found a link between malfunctioning immune system in children and increased risk of depression and psychosis when they become young adults. This study, and others, have chipped away at the notion that the nervous and immune systems operate separately from each other.

According to the researchers, when the immune system is cranked up immune cells flood the bloodstream with proteins such as interleukin-6 (IL-6). IL6 is a common chemical marker of inflammation, but for years studies have also shown that depressed and schizophrenic people have elevated levels of this chemical.

Interestingly elevated levels of IL-6 have previously been shown to increase the risk of heart disease and type-2 diabetes, and people with depression and schizophrenia are also known to have a much higher risk of developing these diseases too.

Other research suggests that permanent stress may affect immune cells in the brain, leading to mental disorders.

A delicate balance

In this same vein, in a recent study in Nature, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine suggest that the immune system directly affects – and even controls – aspects of social behaviour such as the desire to interact with others.

It all has to do with our delicate dance of survival. As a species our survival depends on our being social, gathering together and getting along with others. Yet social interaction also raises our risk of contracting and spreading disease.

Our bodies deal with this dilemma by releasing interferon gamma, a substance produced by the immune system. Interferon gamma helps the body respond effectively to bacteria, viruses or parasites. But it also has another effect, which is to encourage sociability.

In fact, animal studies have shown that blocking the action of interferon gamma makes the animals less sociable.

The influence of a toxic world?

The work is philosophically interesting, suggesting a deeper connection between body and mind than most of us realise and that the immune system in particular has, as the scientists put it, a “profound role in maintaining proper social function.”

But it also has clinical implications for disorders such as autism as well as other neurological and psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, where decreased sociability is a symptom.

Are these disease on the rise – at least in part – because our immune systems are increasingly compromised? Whatismore, these scientists are looking at the extreme ends of the behavioural spectrum. Could there be other levels at which a disrupted immune system influences anti-social behaviour, or even violence?

Human social behaviour is complex and I’m not suggesting that immune malfunction is the only influence.

Nevertheless, the possibility that immunity plays a key role opens up all kinds of new avenues of understanding and treatment options. It also opens us up to questions we must answer, like what is it about modern life that is damaging our immune systems to such a degree?

Just asking the question compels us to consider the influence of modern diets, gut disorders, chemical exposures and lifestyles that keep us indoors in for hours each day, separate from the natural environment which sustains us and in which we all evolved.

For those of us with an interest in natural health, the answer to our most pressing health questions has always been to take a more holistic look at the problem. Can we now begin to convince conventional practitioners to do the same?

Pat Thomas, Editor