This seems to be very plausible, if not plain obvious!
"Chronic pain—or pain that lasts at least three months—is closely intertwined with depression. Individuals living with pain’s persistent symptoms may be up to four times more likely to experience depression, research shows.
Almost 30% of people worldwide suffer from a chronic pain condition such as lower back pain and migraines, and one in three of these patients also report co-existing pain conditions.
Now, a new study published in Science Advances shows that a person’s risk of depression increases alongside the number of places in the body in which they experience pain. Furthermore, inflammatory markers such as C-reactive protein (a protein produced by the liver in response to inflammation) help explain the association between pain and depression.
This finding suggests that the mechanisms underlying chronic pain and depression may be driven by systemic inflammation, the researchers say. ..."
From the abstract:
"Chronic pain conditions frequently coexist and share common genetic vulnerabilities. Despite evidence showing associations between pain and depression, the additive effect of co-occurring pain conditions on depression risk and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear.
Leveraging data from 431,038 UK Biobank participants with 14-year follow-up, we found a significantly increased risk of depression incidence in individuals reporting pain, irrespective of body site or duration (acute or chronic), compared with pain-free individuals.
The depression risk increased with the number of co-occurring pain sites. Mendelian randomization supported potential causal inference.
We constructed a composite pain score by combining individual effects of acute or chronic pain conditions across eight body sites in a weighted manner.
We found that depression risks increased monotonically in parallel with composite pain scores.
Moreover, some inflammatory markers, including C-reactive protein, partially mediated the association between composite pain scores and depression risk. Considering the high prevalence of comorbid depression and pain, pain screening may help identify high-risk individuals for depression."
The inflammatory and genetic mechanisms underlying the cumulative effect of co-occurring pain conditions on depression (open access)
Fig. 1. Overview of study workflow.
Fig. 2. Prospective associations of acute or chronic pain across eight body sites and incidence of depression.
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