Life in the flame: Inflammation sounds the alarm for suicide risk

Wen-Jie Yan; Chun-Lei Jiang; Wen-Jun Su

doi:10.1016/j.bbih.2021.100250

Life in the flame: Inflammation sounds the alarm for suicide risk

Brain Behav Immun Health. 2021 Mar 31:14:100250. doi: 10.1016/j.bbih.2021.100250. eCollection 2021 Jul.

Authors

Wen-Jie Yan^{1

2}, Chun-Lei Jiang¹, Wen-Jun Su¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Stress Medicine, Faculty of Psychology, Naval Medical University, 800 Xiangyin Road, Shanghai, China.
² Lab for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Faculty of Psychology, Naval Medical University, 800 Xiangyin Road, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

As suicide became a critical issue in mental healthcare, the World Health Organization (WHO) presented a Mental Health Action Plan in 2013. Particularly, the plan set an explicit goal for suicide prevention, which called for 10% reduction in the suicide rate in member countries by 2020. Now the tough year of 2020 has passed by, many valuable breakthroughs on suicide research have emerged during these recent years. To some extent, a multi-stage system for the prediction and prevention of suicide is taking shape. Inflammatory biomarkers may have a promising future within this field.

Keywords: Cytokines; Inflammation; Psychiatry; Suicide.

Publication types

Review