ABSTRACT
Current therapies for depression and related disorders focus on the treatment of the symptoms associated with depression under the neurotransmitter model of depression, which does not answer the question, “if there is an imbalance in neurotransmitters, where does it come from?” The root cause of depression is, thus, never assessed. Immunological, biochemical, and epidemiological evidence gives us indications that depression, a mental illness, develops in certain individuals with a specic history. Those evidences now point to the new theory of depression, the Cytokine Model of Depression. In line with this model, the work of several pioneers is now revisited to highlight the relationship between inammation and immune-mediation and depression. The role of dietary peptides, gluten and casein being the two proteins that have yielded the most research, has now become increasingly important for their potential in triggering an inammatory and immunological cascade of events leading to depression. In a time where the sequencing of the human genome and microbiome in addition to all the research in epigenetics, it has become paramount to recognize that any genetic disposition or epigenetic processes have underlying physiological, biochemical, and functional foundations. Dietary peptides, in their immune-balancing and inammatory-modulating role, have their place in the treatment of depression.
