To exclude depression as confounding variable in measurement of cytokine levels in serum as well, we also compared serum IL-8 levels of control subjects suffering from depression (7.80 / 6.20–70.17 pg/ml) with serum IL-8 levels of non-depressed control subjects (9.64 / 7.00–13.13 pg/ml). Here, CXCL8 is linked to major depressive disorder.