Immunology, inflammation, mental disorders, and cardiovascular risk

Abstract

The clinical relationship between mental disorders and cardiovascular disease and risk factors is highly important with serious consequences for morbidity and mortality. A key biological mechanism in this complex and bidirectional relationship is related to immune dysregulation and inflammation in particular. This review critically evaluates the existing literature on the bidirectional nature of this relationship, the contributing clinical factors, and the role of inflammation in prevalent risk factors for both mental disorders and cardiovascular disease including obesity, endothelial dysfunction, and diabetes mellitus type 2. This chapter outlines the lines of biological mechanisms in the bidirectional relationship between mental disorders and cardiovascular disease by exemplifying this using depression as a common disorder. This focus on the role of immune dysregulation and inflammation in these risk factors and comorbid disease suggests new avenues for identifying and possibly treating early patients at risk, but also it opens up novel and preventive treatments such as the use of anti-inflammatories for both types of conditions.