Skip to content
Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

A BLOOD TEST TO DIAGNOSE DEPRESSION

Medically speaking, depression is a messy illness: diagnosis is often subjective, especially in its early stages, and the pharmaceuticals used to treat it – often in hit-or-miss fashion – can have bizarre side effects, including deepening the depression instead of easing it.
With a new blood test that can diagnose depression with better than 70-percent accuracy, researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine hope to transform diagnosis and treatment for an illness that touches an estimated 300 million people worldwide and one in every ten Americans.
The researchers took blood samples from people clinically diagnosed with depression or bipolar disorder when their moods were normal, dark, or manic. Eventually, the team winnowed 26 RNA markers that reveal the presence of one of a clinical condition, how severe a person’s illness is, predict the risk of a person’s depression becoming acute, and a person’s risk of developing bipolar disorder later on.
Just as important, the biomarker assay can reveal the relative proportion of the illness’s effect on the genes involved in a specific individual. 
That means studies can be carried out to determine which drugs affect which biomarkers most directly, eventually enabling physicians to personalize prescriptions to reduce trial and error.
The Indiana research also identified four existing drugs used in other illnesses that could be repurposed as antidepressants and two natural compounds that might stabilize moods.
The study found that eight of the 26 genes identified were linked to the body’s circadian rhythm, helping to explain why some people become depressed in winter and why mood disorders often disturb sleep.
TRENDPOST: The work could be key in catching and controlling depression in its early stages, which could have major implications for the economy as well as quality of life: depression is ranked as the leading cause of disability among people ages 15 to 44 – the period during which most people establish themselves in careers.
More broadly, bioscientists are learning to read the body’s subtle signals of specific diseases, a fledgling field that will lead to the data-derived personalization of medical treatments for a range of disorders now treated by doctors’ hunches or with one-size-fits-all protocols.

Comments are closed.