What causes depression? That is a big question. No doubt many of you have heard about there being a “chemical imbalance” in the brain, and maybe genetics was thrown in there as well. Today, I want to give a general overview of some other theories that may explain what can lead to depression.
While there may be some truth to the genetics cause, the “chemical imbalance” doesn’t seem to be as likely, however, it cannot be completely eliminated. Here is a listing of some other ideas:
1.Depression can result from an inflammatory/infection/immune reaction process
2.Depression can result from a hormone imbalance
3.Depression can result from a “leaky gut”, which is related to the food that we eat
4.Depression can result from losing our connection to important things in our life such as our values, face to face interactions with others, etc.
5.Depression can result from toxicity and/or environmental exposures
6.Depression can result from trauma that is experienced
7.Depression can result from taking medications
8.Depression can result from the food that we eat
As you can see, this is a fairly good sized list, and I probably have not captured all of the possible theories out there. And, it seems likely that there are several components that go into causing depression, not just one thing. That makes it harder to understand who will or will not have depression, but it is helpful to understand that depression is a lot more complicated than what we might have thought in the past. While we may not understand the exact combination leading to depression (and it probably is different for every individual), these theories give us so many more options to pursue when treating depression, and I think that is important. It may take a lot more trial and error, but hopefully there are some answers here that work better when medications don’t work and/or don’t seem like a good option.