Immune activation in functional dyspepsia: A result of psychological co-morbidity?

Aims: Immune activation is believed to play a role in the pathogenesis of IBS (Gastroenterology 2007;132:913–920) but this has not been studied in functional dyspepsia (FD). Psychological factors are associated with altered immunologic function and thus may modulate immune responses in patients with FD. We hypothesized that the release of cytokines from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) is linked to the severity of psychological co-morbidities in patients with FD. Thus we aimed (1) to characterize PBMC mediated cytokine production, (2) the cellular response to lipopolysacharide (LPS) stimulation and (3)…