ArticleBrain, behavior, & immunity - health2020
IL-6 and hsCRP in Somatic Symptom Disorders and related disorders.
Article in Brain, behavior, & immunity - health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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14 citing papers in PubMed, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Association Between Circulating Cytokines and Psychosomatic Syndromes in Patients with Mood Disorders.Clinical neuropsychiatry · 2025Article
- Monomeric [CRP] and CRP-Controlled Stress and Pain Hypersensitization as Novel Predictors of Cognitive Disturbance and AD in Chronic Inflammatory Disease.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Unveiling Neuropsychiatric Lupus: A Case of SLE Presenting With Depressive Symptoms and Literature Review.Clinical case reports · 2025Article
- Determining the Minimal Clinically Important Difference in Somatic Symptom Scale-8 Score in Patients With Somatic Symptoms and Related Disorders: A Six-Month Follow-Up Study.Alpha psychiatry · 2025Article
- Individual and integrated indexes of inflammation predicting the risks of mental disorders - statistical analysis and artificial neural network.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Review
- Vortioxetine as an alternative treatment for somatic symptom disorder: case report.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- The 10-item Adverse Childhood Experience International Questionnaire (ACE-IQ-10): psychometric properties of the Dutch version in two clinical samples.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2023Article
- Scoping review update on somatic symptom disorder that includes additional Chinese data.General psychiatry · 2023Article
- Anti-inflammatory medications for the treatment of mental disorders: A scoping review.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2022Article
- Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Symptom Complaints among School-Aged Children: A National Longitudinal Study.Nutrients · 2022Article
- Psychosomatic syndromes are associated with IL-6 pro-inflammatory cytokine in heart failure patients.PloS one · 2022Article
- Significant Structural Alterations and Functional Connectivity Alterations of Cerebellar Gray Matter in Patients With Somatic Symptom Disorder.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Article
- Assessment of cytokines, microRNA and patient related outcome measures in conversion disorder/functional neurological disorder (CD/FND): The CANDO clinical feasibility study.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Interleukin 6 (IL-6) and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) are biomarkers of systemic low-grade inflammation (SLI) in depression and anxiety. The question if SLI in those conditions is related to comorbid chronic medical conditions has not been resolved. DSM-5 Somatic symptom disorders and related disorders (SSRD) are conditions with serious distress related to physical symptoms as main criterion. They can occur in patients with medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) and in patients with known comorbid chronic medical conditions. Often, comorbid depression and anxiety are present. SSRDs offer the opportunity to explore the role of SLI in relation to mental distress, including trauma, MUS, chronic medical conditions and comorbid mental disorder.
aimWe hypothesized that increased IL-6 and hsCRP may be directly linked to SLI in SSRD, and that comorbid chronic medical conditions, childhood trauma, current stress and comorbid depression and anxiety may be risk factors that account for some of the variance of SLI in SSRD.
methodsWe explored these relationships in a large sample of 241 consecutive outpatients with SSRD.
resultsMean hsCRP level was 3.66 mg/l, and mean IL-6 level was 3.58 pg/ml. IL-6 and hsCRP levels were associated with each other: τ = 0.249, p < .001; a medium size correlation. Comorbid chronic medical conditions, adverse childhood events other than sexual trauma, and current stress levels were not associated with IL-6 or hsCRP levels.
conclusionIL-6 and hsCRP are elevated in SSRD, indicating SLI in SSRD independently of comorbid chronic medical conditions. In clinical research, elevated IL-6 and hsCRP can be used as biomarkers of SLI and can indicate risk for childhood sexual abuse in SSRD. Elevated hsCRP may be a biomarker indicating risk for comorbid depression or high pain levels in SSRD as well.
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