Blood tests to diagnose mental illness

[Lunar Loops]

This from The Telegraph (UK):

Blood tests to diagnose mental illness

A blood test has been developed that could allow doctors to diagnose mental illnesses, such as depression and schizophrenia, before patients begin to display symptoms.
Prof Sabine Bahn, a psychiatrist at Cambridge University, has found different mental health disorders have their own distinctive chemical "signatures".
She claims the test will speed up the diagnosis of psychiatric disease, which at present can take up to three years while the patient's condition worsens. The NHS currently spends more than £12 billion a year on mental health care.
"The way we diagnose mental illness hasn't changed for the past hundred years," said Prof Bahn.
"Basically, the clinician asks the patient a series of questions about whether they are hearing voices or feel people are out to get them.
"It can take a long time and a patient needs to display symptoms for six months before they get a diagnosis, which means we are missing an important treatment opportunity at the moment.
"There is a big need for a diagnostic test that a GP can do simply and cheaply. A blood test is ideal for that.
"We have found markers which are changing in the brain, spinal fluid and in the blood, so we have focused on identifying a signature of several markers in the blood."
Prof Bahn was last week presented with an award for innovation by Medical Futures, an organisation that is dedicated to the promotion of science and technology.
Her team is now hoping to conduct clinical trials on tests for schizophrenia, depression and bi-polar disorder, and to develop similar ways of diagnosing conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
Prof Bahn added that the chemical markers used in the blood tests were providing valuable information that could eventually lead to new treatments.
"The markers we are finding imply that schizophrenia may be an abnormality that means the brain is not getting enough energy," she said.
"We are going to start some clinical trails with drugs that enhance the use of sugar to see if it helps."
Almost one adult in six in Britain suffers some form of mental health problem, costing the economy in England alone more than £77 billion every year.
Sophie Corlett, the policy director at Mind, the mental health charity, said: "Some people's genetics may predispose them to certain mental health problems and research in this area is certainly very welcome. Early intervention is crucial. Overstretched psychiatric staff and social workers often don't have resources to intervene until someone's mental health has deteriorated to the extent that they have to go into hospital."

[stoneinfocus]

Uh, great, they can´t even tody distinguish a normal person from a "mentally ill" person, by diagnosis, so how is that gonna work?

what´s these markers? putting somene into stress, by taking his freedom and rights and self-determintaion, treating with lobothomising drugs, then searching for some "variables", that look reasonable and scientific for the making of a later "rock-hard" diagnosis and shut up all criticicsm?

what a joke.

[toe]

SWItoe doesn't understand how this is going to resolve the NHS' funding problem. (The public mental/health system in the states is totally screwed as well, but it's hard to resist the temptation to join in with all the grousing at the UK system when it has abandoned so many of swim's friends.)

As the poster above mentioned, crazy aint that hard to parcel out. Mild crazy can be covered up, sure. But real honest-to-god crazy requiring drugs and intervention is pretty palpable. SWItoe does not believe it is anywhere near as important to separate out (thus, one way or another, stigmatizing) and name different varieties of mental illness as it is to simply match symptoms with optimal treatments.

Further, SWItoe doesn't understand how identifying the genes responsible for mental illness could used for anything other than, well, genocide. SWItoe is firmly in the camp of a woman's right to choose to abort a fetus. However, she does believe this choice should be made on the basis of Dr. Mengele's news that her futurechild would have a 59% chance of developing psychotic depression.

No. No thank you very much.

[stoneinfocus]

they feel they´re loosing ground as the definition of "sickness" involves
a) a measurable distortion of body fluid composition
b) the person treated has to complain about symptoms of being sick or suffering

a) will thus be solved,
b) is they know better than the indivduum itself , that it´s feelign bad although it might tell the opposite.

c) thus treated and "evidentially" being made mentally ill, you´ll have your whole life given up into the absolute power of the treating clinics and those "docs" or the fear of just one step being away, like someone´s beating you up with his friends you beat him, the cops will take IDs and guess who´s gonna be fucked, when having no witnesses? Your family knows about your evil blood or genetical failure and want for some reason get rid of you, as they need your rooms for the rent -right.. maybe not but the terror is always on your mind, and that´s enough for sensitve beings to lose a lot of living quality, some might commit suicide for this "helping".

[JDreaming]

I think the medical and psychiatric community is still far from truly understanding what mental illness really is, but if anything this sounds like a worthy experiment. Telling people what disorder they have by having a therapist talk to them try to define their neuroses or lack of self esteem as an illness is really ridiculous... you don't diagnose a mental disease through social interaction. Both the psychotherapist making the diagnosis and the patient have too many prejudices for what they say in conversation to be a true indication of their emotional and mental balance.

If it's possible to tell imbalances in brain chemicals that regulate mental and emotional stability through blood testing, this could be a valuable tool. I'm sure it's still a long, long way from there being any proof that this sort of method works... and since "mental illness" is so difficult to define, it may even be impossible to ever truly prove that it does work... but I'm glad the psychiatric community is at least trying something new.

[stoneinfocus]

I think they´re just on the way of proving them wrong, by trying harder to prove right.
this is going to be `Bahn´-brechend (a breakthrough) lol