rjmsci

rjmsci OP t1_j8tpods wrote

I think quoting the Moncrieff paper is a mistake here - that's an article with an agenda. Depression is not caused by lowered serotonin activity, sure, but compounds that primarily modulate the serotonin system do relieve it. It's up to the field to unravel the mechanisms behind this. Do these intracellular 5ht2as kick off pathways that surface receptors don't? How do different serotonin agonists affect these receptors? This is exactly the kind of research the field needs to answer these questions.

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rjmsci OP t1_j7py4pq wrote

Couldn't fit it in the title, but an interesting factor is that long-term ME/CFS patients had microbiota that looked like that of health controls. But instead they had metabolic alterations in their plasma - suggesting that changes in the microbiota may lead to long-term changes elsewhere. Also, correlation not causation, folks!

Link here: https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(23)00021-5

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rjmsci OP t1_isyb6bu wrote

Sixth-grader explanation: We all have different types of genes, called alleles. Some alleles can be useful in certain situations. In medieval Eurasia, it seems that having some alleles helped people not die of the Black Death. That means that after the Black Death, those alleles became more common. However, nowadays, those more common alleles are now unhelpful as they may increase the risk of getting autoimmune conditions. Hope that helps!

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