Disturbi dell’umore e patologie glutine correlate. Mood disorders and gluten-related diseases

Background. Immune activation against gluten has been studied and well described in several mental disorders, including Schizophrenia, but systematic and conclusive data pertaining to mood disorders (MD) is still lacking. The study aims to assess whether MD are related to an immune response against gluten. Methods. Patients were administered the following psychometric tools: (a) Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), i.e. a semi-structured clinical interview, to confirm the diagnosis; (b) Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D) and Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety (HAM-A) to evaluate depressive and anxiety symptomatology, respectively; (c) Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS) e Young Mania Rating Scale to evaluate psychotic and manic symptoms. Controls received the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV-Non Patients Version (SCID-NP) to rule out the presence of current or past psychiatric disorders. Statistical analyses were performed with non-parametric tests. Serum samples from the 60 patients diagnosed with MD and from the 48 healthy controls, genetically unrelated with the 60 patients, were analyzed for IgA and IgG anti-transglutaminase antibodies (tTG), IgA antiendomysial antibodies (EMA), IgA and IgG anti-gliadin antibodies (AGA) and IgA and IgG anti-deamidated gliadin peptides antibodies (DGP). All antibody tests were run with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and indirect immunofluorescence technique (IFI) (Eurospital, Trieste, Italy). Results. Only the tTG IgG levels resulted significantly higher in patients than controls (p < 0.007), whose mean values were 16.3 ± 11.8 in the patient group and 11.2±10.0 in the control group. When evaluating subgroups of recruited subject-patients with/without comorbidity of autoimmune or inflammatory diseases, controls with/without comorbidity of autoimmune or inflammatory diseases-tTG IgG results were similar in patients with or without comorbidity. On the contrary, a significant difference (p <0.004) in the subgroups without comorbidity was observed between tTG IgG of patients (16.6 ± 11.7) and tTG IgG of controls (10.2± 8.8). Conclusions. Subjects with MD do not seem to be at higher risk of suffering celiac disease (CD) or non-celiac gluten sensitivity than general population. tTG IgG autoantibodies seem to be typical of MD, in whom may not be related to a specific/primary autoimmune or inflammatory disease. Yet, they might represent an aetiopathogenetic factor for the development of psychatric disorder or a secondary effect of the psychiatric disorder on the immunary system