An prosperous and reliable method of discover bipolar disorder from major depressive disorder could save X of 1000 of biography , and transform zillion more . Now researchers at Chongqing Medical University , China , claim to have obtain just that in a study base on biomarkers in piss .
The popular image of someone with bipolar disorder is epitomized by prominent figures such asRobin Williams – bouts of dangerous depression punctuate by off - the - paries mania . In world , it is often not so easy to know ; even Williams said he was neverofficially diagnose . Moreover , as a fresh paper inThe Journal Proteomeresearch notes , “ Multiple depressive episodes ordinarily occur prior to the first manic episode in many bipolar patients . ”
In these cases , the symptoms of bipolar can be very difficult to tell apart from those ofmajor depressive disorder(MDD ) . Since MDD is the more vulgar stipulation , clinicians often chute to anMDD diagnosing ; indeed , many do n’t even suppose to look into thepossibility of bipolar . work have found that as many as 39 % of patient diagnosed with MDD haveunrecognized bipolar .
The newspaper adds : “ A large percentage of BD subjects are falsely treated with antidepressants in clinical practice . ” The consequences can be lethal . Selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors ( SSRIs ) such as Prozac and Celexaprobably do n’t helppeople with bipolar . SSRIs are alleged toincrease self-annihilation riskamong bipolar patient , a major concern since bipolar sick person have suicide rates around20 timesthe universe as a whole .
While efforts have been made to alert doctors to the peril of this sorting of misdiagnosis , as long as we continue to trust only onmultiple subtle signs , the problem will rest .
The Chongquing squad think they have get a fashion out of this problem , having identify biomarkers whose concentrations are different for mass with bipolar or MDD .
The authors note that some of these biomarkers have been look into before , but individually did not provide a sufficiently true method for diagnosing . However , older writer Dr. Peng Xie propose that multiple markers in combination might bring home the bacon where each had give out .
For the study , experienced psychiatrists recruited 71 hoi polloi with bipolar disorder , 126 whose diagnosis of MDD was consider authentic , and 126 " respectable ascendancy . " Each group was divide into a training position and a test curing . For the training set , the researchers knew the subject ’s consideration before of time and used this to distinguish relevant mark , while in the other set it was a blind test to confirm the predictive capability of these mark . The researcher examined the pee of those in the education pose to key 20 metabolite associated with either MDD or bipolar .
An initial visitation on the test prepare place 76 % of those with MDD and 79 % of those with bipolar , fall shortly of what would be command clinically . However , when the results were reanalyzed , six metabolite stick out out .
After normalizing these six metabolite to creatinine compactness in water , the authors found they could achieve 90 % reliability in distinguishing between the two conditions .
The authors observe that the study ’s subjects had a common ethnicity and had been treat at the same hospital , necessitating further research to see whether the results can be generalise . However , the research add to workpublished last yearsuggesting biomarkers could play a major role in depressive disorder diagnosis .
