Functional Bowel Disorders Are Associated with a Central Immune Activation
Table 1
Characteristics of the participants in the two groups with comparisons between the groups.
Variables (number of subjects in the analyses if less than 66)
Neurological group
Depression group
Statistics value
Female
12/19 (63%)
25/47 (53%)
0.586
Age (years)
47 (14)
45 (14)
0.506
BDI-II
6.5 (6.7)
30.4 (12.6)
<0.001
IBS
6/19 (32%)
27/47 (57%)
0.102
IBS-SSS ()
113 (88)
200 (103)
0.003
INF-γ serum (pg/ml)
63.1 (29.2; 83.0)
54.7 (29.2; 86.4)
0.025
IL-1ra serum (pg/ml)
180 (117; 268)
161 (94; 1825)
0.027
IL-10 serum (pg/ml)
4.05 (2.10; 8.55)
2.99 (0.69; 12.72)
0.040
TNF serum (pg/ml)
30.9 (4.5)
29.8 (5.5)
0.459
TNF/IL-10 ratio serum
7.24 (3.80; 16.19)
9.77 (2.99; 31.88)
0.029
Exotaxin-CSF (pg/ml) ()
2.30 (0.99; 27.79)
1.44 (0.53; 57.73)
0.042
IL-10-CSF (pg/ml) ()
1.64 (0.36)
1.53 (0.32)
0.251
TNF-CSF (pg/ml) ()
1.60 (0.96)
1.43 (0.80)
0.470
TNF/IL-10 ratio CSF ()
1.0 (0.7)
1.0 (0.5)
0.731
Kynurenine serum (μM) ()
2.00 (0.58)
2.17 (0.53)
0.286
Tryptophan serum (μM) ()
56.5 (11.1)
58.1 (12.4)
0.640
K/T ratio × 1000 serum ()
36.1 (9.7)
38.2 (10.1)
0.447
Kynurenine CSF (μM) ()
0.055 (0.037; 0.097)
0.057 (0.032; 0.148)
0.572
Tryptophan CSF (μM) ()
2.12 (1.56; 6.23)
2.07 (1.36; 144.50)
0.708
K/T ratio × 1000 CSF ()
26.4 (7.0)
27.1 (12.2)
0.823
Propionic acid faeces (mmol/l) ()
1.77 (1.11)
1.57 (1.33)
0.582
Butyric acid faeces (mmol/l) ()
2.02 (1.63)
1.40 (1.24)
0.142
PmB in faeces (mmol/l) ()
−0.25 (0.76)
0.16 (0.53)
0.031
The results are given as number and proportion (%), mean with standard deviation, and median with range. Fisher’s exact test (marked with ), t-test, and Mann–Whitney U test () were used for the comparisons between the groups. BDI-II: Beck Depression Inventory-II; IBS: irritable bowel syndrome; IBS-SSS: irritable bowel syndrome symptom severity score; INF-γ serum: interferon gamma in serum; IL-10-CSF: interleukin 10 in the cerebrospinal fluid; TNF serum and TNF-CSF: tumor necrosis factor in serum and tumor necrosis factor in the cerebrospinal fluid; PmB: propionic acid minus butyric acid; K/T ratio × 1000: kynurenine/tryptophan ratio × 1000.