Sam,

This is interesting, but it seems like it's just another variant of "inflammatory responses are positively related to depression." I've seen a lot on this during my time in the academic community.

It's good research, of course, and I've got no reason to doubt the veracity of this new microbiome finding, but at what point are we just pointlessly cataloging new causes of inflammation? At some point we're just going to have to accept the common link and target that directly. Is this microbiome research holding out a unique promise for addressing inflammation more strongly than other methods?

Looking closer at the description in your study, you suggest that the inflammation might be the distal cause, and the problematic immune cells you've described might be the thing that actually causes the depression. Does the paper actually make that claim and provide some evidence for it? Or is that just one of the possible explanations you see?

J