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Anxiety Disorders Discoverable by Blood Test
Tomer Yaffe writes to tell us that researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem have discovered a technique to diagnose anxiety disorders with a simple blood test. From the article: "The researchers hope that the anxiety blood test will soon make its way into hospitals and E.R. rooms and give doctors and psychiatrists a quick and precise tool for examining, and eventually treating, these disorders." The team has also set their sights on depression, hoping for a similar technique to detect these types of disorders as well.
then they'd be really screwed..
Stop squirming away from the needle! We need to run this test on you!
As a psych student planning on specializing in anxiety/depression, this is great news. A blood test would make it a lot easier for people to acknowledge that they have an anxiety disorder. Currently one of the greatest challenges a psychologist faces in these disorders is getting the patient to see that they really do have one and it is impacting them negatively.
. . . in that case the test would be fairly conclusive.
Because that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we want to do with people with anxiety disorder: suck out their blood. That couldn't *possibly* make anyone... anxious, or worried. Nope. Not a chance of that.
Perfect for screening potential employees as well!
My only worry about this is that some people might just be feeling shitty, and wouldn't want to submit to a blood test. What if a person says they're anxious/depressed, but the blood test says otherwise? What do doctors believe?
In any event, it'd probably be better if doctors got to work on making some antidepressants with less overt side effects before they learn to diagnose it...I mean I've just started taking Prozac, and already I'm getting headaches, and the leaflet with the pills has a whole lot more side effects to watch out for.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
While I'm not a doctor, a lot of the most anxious people I know are heavy consumers of caffeine. They're the sort of people who drink three cups in the morning, followed by a Coke while at work, and then another cup of coffee and a chocolate bar snack on the way home, followed by a couple of cups of tea with dinner. And then they can't sleep, so they need to repeat the cycle again the next day, for years on end.
The was one fellow I worked with, Trent, who was in that cycle, and was always very anxious and irritable. He eventually decided to just cut out caffeine completely. So he started drinking fruit juices instead of coffee, water instead of Coke. He stopped eating chocolate. And soon after dropping caffeine from his diet he found he was able to concentrate more, was far more efficient at work, and was a whole lot less anxious.
So perhaps a good way to eliminate some forms of anxiousness is to stop consuming caffeine.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I doubt these kind of issues can be singled out by a blood test. I'm sure they are finding some subset of those with an anxiety issue, but they will overlook others with similar issues because "it didn't show up on the test."
The last thing we need are doctors relying even *more* upon tests rather than listening to their patients.
Who needs tests when we have Tom Cruise to tell us that it's all in our imagination and we just need exercise to chase those blues away!
For those of you not in the know, Obsessive-Compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder.
I read TFA.
The problem I see with this kind of testing is the cases where the diagnosed individual refuses treatment. The stigma against being labeled as "crazy" is still crushingly huge, and this is a signifigant reason why many people who suffer from emotional disorders refuse to seek treatment. They see it as a sign of weakness, of "not being able to handle things themselves."
So I forsee and fear individuals getting stuck with a (mandatory) needle then being told, "You are anxious", and "You must submit to treatment". The world knows no shortage of elitist M.D.s who hate the notion of a patient not obeying their very learned whim. Why not use the police to force these people into treatment? Perhaps I'm just being paranoid.
Or maybe I'm just anxious...
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
I disagree. While I feel that recovery should be placed upon the patient, it is important to let them know that they are not responsible for causing the disorder. My significant other was extremely bothered and felt that she was a failure for having an anxiety disorder, but I remind her that "(She) isn't responsible for having the disorder, but she is responsible for her recovery."
Interesting to see that they found a correlation between acetylcholine / acetylcholinesterase and anxiety disorders. It goes to show that the physical symptoms aren't just "in your head". Those two chemicals regulate the nervous system. You'll see that most nerve agents, such as VX, are acetylcholinesterase inhibitors.
I would like to see someone take this new information and conduct another study of the people suffering from Gulf War syndrome - both with physical weakness and mental / anxiety problems. I bet they would discover that many of them were either exposed to a nerve agent or an antidote on some level. It's sad that so many veterans are suffering and our government has made no real effort to help them.
If they won't let you take their blood for the test, they've got a disorder!
Anxiety Blood Test results to be tracked with RFID. IBM corporation swears there's nothing to be anxious about...
Note: I'm no a fan of PC (politically-correct) diversity, but do see value in variety to maximize total economic performance across a range of conditions and fields of endeavor.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
And in my studied opinion, THAT is the most prevalent misconception in the field. Knowing their is a biological component to their illness helps patients realize it's not just them, they aren't just crazy or imagining it, and helps them work on it from a much stronger position.
This is SO educational! -- Kintaro Oe
Until now they typically diagnose by asking you some questions ("do you have thoughts of suicide? do you sleep ok?" etc.). If you're having a bad day or have your shit-colored glasses on for some other reason, it will color your responses.
And then they try you on some anti-depressant and ask you the same questions 2 months later to see if it's working. If it's not working, they switch to another medication, rinse and repeat.
This is seriously lame, and in the case of depression, might easily cause you to give up. A blood test would go a long way toward addressing this -- especially if it gives any clues about which medications are more likely to work.
As somebody in the medical field (or soon to be), are you a proponent of using drugs to treat anxiety? I've heard reports that some of the drugs frequently have awful side effects, and can become very addicting and very difficult to ease off of. There have even been consumer lawsuits against various pharmas, if I'm not mistaken.
That said, if such a test were used to identify those suffering from such illnesses, would you as a clinician prescribe such drugs, or would you focus on alternative therapies?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Yes, but it just as strongly provides a cop-out mechanism with which the patient may absolve herself of her responsibility to recover. Besides, the science of measuring changes in brain and blood chemistry, then these changes for mood swings concurrent with the change, is shaky at best. It will be a long time before humans fully understand neuro- and bio-chemistry and how they relate to the psyche, and until that day I am more than happy to keep my patients in the dark about it.
There was a point, counterpoint and then a reaffirmation of the first point and nobody said the other one was stupid? Is today OPPOSITE DAY!?
It depends on the patient. In my opinion, benzodiazepines should NOT be used for long term treatment (anything longer than 2 weeks or so). What I've observed to be most effective is beginning an SSRI (or in some cases SNRI), and if needed using a benzodiazepine to control the symptoms/side effects until the S(S/N)RI has stablized. Then Cognitive Behavioral Therapy while the patient is on the anti-depressants, and then slowly taking them off of the antidepressants.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
I wish this test had been around when I blew my top a few times and ended up in the emergency room. Each visit resulted in a different hypothesis on what was wrong with me, from dehydration to renault's syndrome.
The shit is scary enough when you have no idea what is wrong with you. For most anxiety sufferers, the first half dozen of earthquake sized panic attacks are almost always assumed to be physical problems. I believe I had brain cancer, lung cancer, intestinal cancer, heart problems, etc. Had I been shown a test result that read anxiety, I would have saved a lot of additional anxiety worrying about whether or not my ticker was going to go at any given moment.
Good news.
Prozac has changed things but there is this pervasive idea that mood is completely under ones control and that all one needs is determination to snap out of any mood and become the most successful happy person in the world. Happy people tell depressed people naively, "Why don't you just snap out of it?". The problem is is that you can't simulate another persons brain chemistry. You can't even simulate your own brain chemistry from mood to mood. Ever walk by two people yelling and screaming at each other and start thinking, "What's up with them?". Have you ever been those two people yelling and screaming at some point in your life? When we're happy we couldn't imagine how we were sad. When we're sad we couldn't imagine how we could have been happy.
When we eliminate something that wastes the lives of 13% of the population, and if you've ever known someone with an anxiety disorder you'll know how much of their life they waste, won't that improve the human condition more than just about anything else? What's better, is these fixes to mental health improve things throughout society, letting people avoid destructive compulsions and reach their full potential.
Anxiety disorders are typically "ruled in" after doing all sorts of tests first to look for other serious medical issues that may cause similar symptoms. Having an MRI's and seeing a neurologist, visiting an E.N.T., and visiting a cardiologist can often be the path taken before a Dr. rules in an anxiety disorder (unless of course it's totally obvious, which it isn't a lot of the time).
Many people (like Tom Cruise) consider psychology to be a pseudoscience. However, if we can come up with definitive tests with concrete results in order to diagnose patients with mental illnesses, it makes psychology that much more closely resemble the rest of the world of medicine. This will (hopefully) make people realize that there is a real science behind it.
I know that if my son was diagnosed with ADD, I would feel much more comfortable having him treated with ritalin or whatever if the doctor had a blood test (or something more concrete than "He's all fidgety in class") to back it up.
This actually reminds me a bit of the home headache test.
Wife: "Oh, God, I'm in agony!"
Husband (holding strip): "Honey, you don't have a headache."
Wife: "Oh, thank God!"
But this Rottweiler not only is snarling and frothing at the mouth; it also went to Harvard.
I just don't have the attention span for that kind of commitment. Anyways, time to go find something else to post about...
I know I've stolen this from numerous comedians ...
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
"Fixing" the person is like walpapering a house with collapsed foundations. It'll make the problem invisible... for a while. But unless you fix the foundations, the house will still fall down. Likewise, fixing the foundations alone may prevent further damage, but the inside of the house will still look a wreck.
The job of ANYONE in (or around) mental health is to correct all of the aspects of the mental health problem they are dealing with. A partial solution can be worse than no solution at all, especially if you keep telling the patient that it's all the patient's fault/responsibility.
Establishing a cause, like faulty genes, allows the patient to remedy the underlying problem. Most genetic or biological problems are solvable with the right regemen, but unless you identify those underlying issues, you will NEVER identify the regemen that needs to be followed. And the patient will suffer the consequences of your inaction by deteriorating further. However, such treatment will only ever stabilize a condition. It won't cure it. Curing DOES require the patient to take responsibility for their actions, for their lives and for getting better.
To ask them to take that responsibility whilst their brain is chemically or electically up the spout, though, is about as intelligent as telling the skydiver whose parachute has failed that all they need do is flap their arms faster. Hardware failure requires a hardware solution. Software failure (in this case, the mind of the person) requires a software solution. NEVER assume that hardware will fix faulty software, or software will ever compensate for defective hardware.
Remedy the fault, NOT the fault's owner.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
As someone who has experienced and recovered from a psychosomatic disorder (in my case what I thought was "repetitive strain injury"), I tend to agree that sometimes its better that patient doesn't know about physical evidence. The mind is clever enough to create painful symptoms where it knows there are structural abnormalities, even though those structural abnormalities don't cause pain. Read "The Mindbody Prescription" by John Sarno if you're interested in what I'm talking about here (or Google "sarno tms" or check out this document)
In this case, I don't really know much about the discovery, so maybe it doesn't apply, but this is what worries me: ok, so anxiety disorders can be detected in the bloodstream. But what is the cause? It can still be something that is purely psychological and something that could potentially be fixed through psychological approaches. Maybe the evidence in the bloodstream is the result of anxiety disorders, but the anxiety disorder itself is still psychological. The mind is capable of making changes to the body in pretty incredible ways (I've experienced this first hand), this isn't really too surprising.
What worries me about this is that this will give people the concept that there is something actually physically/chemically wrong with them that they were born with that they can't fix. They will start to think it is a chronic problem that won't go away, and they just have to live with it, which just leads to using medicine to alleviate the symptoms, rather that going after cause. Maybe it actually is something physically/chemically wrong (an idea I'm very skeptical about after my own experiences), but I'd imagine there is significant number of people who have experienced anxiety who don't have any such physically/chemically problems.
Interesting discovery nonetheless, but interpretting what it actually means is probably more interesting.
This is 100% correct. I suffer from Paranoid Personality Disorder mixed in with anxiety and there is an inherent component of the "disorder" that would keep you from getting help in the first place. Some number of people with true paranoia or strong enough anxiety would not want to contact anyone for help in the first place. As avoidance, being worried about the interaction, denying any actual problem, etc.
/. back up for Tor!)
Then when you get to taking blood or DNA collection... Jesus. I have enough worries just thinking about medical records, anything written down about me that has the potential to be used against me, especially considering the sorry state of any type of security and the ability of others to gain access to that information through various means.
The paranoid definitely are a group that rarely seeks out "help", this is clear from the DSM and other sources (very few PPD individuals seek treatment compared to other "disorders"), and I can testify first hand that the idea of blood being collected from me, or submitting myself to urine tests or the like certainly is something I would avoid.
(open
As an ex-student of psychology I see where your coming from, BUT disagree on principled grounds. I do not think that lying or concealing aspects of ones condition is ethical, EVER. Sure, some preparation and ground work might be needed before revealing the aspects of ones condition is full is a good idea, but this knowledge should ALWAYS be bestowd on one, since one does, in fact, OWN ones condition, it is a part of their being, and thus they should be entitled to know. If one purposely conceals facts about a person from them, you are putting yourself in a contrived state of "godhood" above them, you are more important than them, as related to their being. In a way you are dehumanizing or objectifying them. While your stance has bigger practical benefits, it is an ethical problem. Ethics should always come above and first, and solutions must be shaped around your principles.
Yes, the problem/solution should and is on the patients shoulders. And a genetic cause can be a crutch to those who know nothing of the mutability of genetics in real life. It is then YOUR responsibility to show this, and present them with the full truth of their situation. Anything else is disingenuous.
If you can't tell, I fled psychology for philosophy because of the inherent errors involved in modern psychology that most take as given.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
As someone with extreme anxiety and depression, successfully treated with standard medications of today, if this test were to come back and say I didn't have one or either, would that have pushed me over the edge of insanity?
Is this really adding to the value of anxiety treatment?
In theory, there are neurochemical abnormalities behind all the above conditions. Which is probably true (at least for most people with these labels), but which is almost never verified in clinical practice. What they do now is "rule out" alternative non-psychiatric conditions, and then when they're stumped, they label it psychiatric. Which I guess works most of the time — but every once in a while you get somebody diagnosed with "depression" when they actually suffer from carbon monoxide poisoning, or some other toxicity the primary physician forgot to check for.
(A side note about terminology: to most people "depression" means, "extremely sad". But to psychiatrists, "depression" means "depressed mental function". The two kind of go together, but "clinical depression" is not a fancy way of saying "you need to cheer up." And of course "depressed mental function" is a symptom of a lot of conditions!)
I once knew a psychiatrist who thought that every diagnosis of "depression" should be verified with a PET scan. Fiendishly expensive, but nothing compared to the huge costs of antidepressant prescriptions and talk therapy. But the idea is unlikely to catch on. Indeed a lot of "depression" doesn't even get a proper psychiatric diagnosis. Instead some internist whose HMO only lets him have 15 minutes per patient says, "Well, you say you don't feel good, but I can't find anything wrong with you. Maybe you're depressed? Let's try some Zoloft and see how you do." Having a simple chemical test would make things a tad more rigorous.
It would also help mental illness get proper insurance coverage. Insurance companies don't like covering it, because it doesn't fit in their bureaucratic model. A simple, inexpensive test would make a lot of difference there.
For example, if I had the money, I would love to finance a study to see how effective relaxation techniques (TM, Yoga, other breathing exercises, exercise...) are in reducing anxiety.
Look at the research of Jon Kabat-Zinn. Here's an example.
Like so many other "discoverable" attributes, this could easily backfire. If an employer/insurer is ever in such a position to perform a blood test of any kind, there's not a whole lot sitting between your sample, and them acquiring a lot of extra information about you.
Actually I think they were refering to needle phobias. My girlfriend has one.
It's nothing to do with *what* is being injected/taken out. It is the sight of the syringe or needle. She cannot watch anyone else having one done without feeling sick and used to be unable to even look at a photo of a syringe on its own.
As far as having an injection, such as for a vaccination she gets hysterical and loses control. In the past several people have had to pin her down while she has the injection.
I have always thought the extra trauma of this probably just makes matters worse. Giving her a temporary anesthetic which lasts only a minute or so would be far nicer.
(By the way, I am just joking.)
"The advanced societies of the future will be driven by competing systems of psychopathology." -JG Ballard
Right on! This course of treatment (or rather several courses) has helped me greatly. Cognitive therapy works!! Of course handing a patient a Prozac perscription and a copy of "Feeling Good" is all some health plans will cover. It takes time and the help of a talented person to really make changes in your life.
I wish you well in your studies and your practice.
It's from Hebrew University.
Blood test: compare DNA sample to that of a Jewish mother.
If there's a relationship, then the testee has an anxiety disorder.
Disclaimer: I'm Jewish.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
How convenient that a "simple blood test" has been found to test for such subjective mental states as anxiety disorders and depression. The President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health "recommends" psychological testing for all Americans, and wants to ensure by law that every school-age child has been offered such an exam.
History time and again records governments continually abusing the power accorded by such sweeping initiatives, interpreted as mandates by sycophantic minions. Why should modern government be any different?
The real questions are: Who determines what is to be considered a mental illness? Which authorities control who is tested for mental illness and how? What will be done to the mentally ill under the aegis of treatment? Who stands to profit from it all?
The Columbia University TeenScreen Program is the pilot program mentioned in the report as the model program to administer such a CBT test. Their pilot test is already being given to kids in at least 27 states, in at least 69 schools.
At the Teenscreen website, under the "Setting The Record Straight About TeenScreen" page, the group argues that the language in the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, couched in terms of "universal screening" does not mean "mandatory screening."
Yes, Teenscreen does not advocate forced psychological testing at their website. However, Teenscreen can only vouchsafe for itself.
Teenscreen may indeed be an organization of integrity; the question is not how are the recommendations of the President's Commission being tested, but what will be the future of the initiative advocated!
Governments do not have a good track record being trusted to endorse and administer psychological testing of the citizenry. More than plaintive appeals as to Teenscreen's integrity are needed to dispell the fact that governments in both the distant and recent past have used official definitions of "mental health" as a means to control, imprison and torture citizens. The more wide-spread such programs become, the more likely they will be used nefariously. American forms of eugenics are alive and well.
Teenscreen cannot speak for the aims of government, nor for what government does with the information once it is collected by organizations such as Teenscreen. Presumeably such information will be subject to government review.
With the acknowledged surveillance of all network communications by Navy operations it is doubtful that client-professional privilege could be maintained, even if private organizations were to retain some semblance of separation between their testing of individuals in public settings and the government's pervasive snooping.
For more, see: www.inforwars.net
He's right you know. I knew a guy that posted Anonymous Coward on slashdot. Ten years later, *BAM* herpes.
(Apologies for the AC but I'd already moderated on this thread when I saw your comments)
Ultimately, you get to decide how to manage your patients, and if they're comfortable with your approach, so be it. From my standpoint though, this is patronizing and if I ever found that my doctor was intentionally obscuring information to protect me, I'd walk out the door and would never come back. Actually, over the past 15 or so years, I have left two doctors over trust issues but for different cause (they weren't obscuring information; they were just BSing and they admitted it when I called them on it). Anyway, not faith building experiences. I assume you don't tell your patients that this is your modus operandi up front? I have a hard time imagining them trusting you afterwords.
Anyway, I agree that neurochemistry is in its infancy, and I also agree that science often gets over sold, to the detriment of the credulous. No harm in teaching patients due skepticism. But that's a separate issue, apart intentionally deceiving one's patients for their supposed good.
The big difference between Scientology's theories and Pastafarianism's is that anybody can make up stuff about the Flying Spaghetti Monster out of whole cloth, but only El-Ron and a few of his successors are Allowed to make up Official Scientology Stuff unless they want Bad Things to happen to them.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Well, from your comment above, there is a reason you are a pharmacy tech and not a doctor....
And mostly clueless.
Medications are useful when prescribed properly. And no amount of therapy will help severe depression. Granted, getting the proper medication and dosing can be difficult. And if you think medication is costly, it is often cheap compared to therapy....
"And I absolutely doubt the abilities of a doctor who speaks to a patient for only an hour a week then gives a few pills."
That, btw, would be excellent medical care. Hell, an hour a month would be good...
Of course, I wouldn't want to get any medication from any pharmacy you work in. I have severe doubts about your abilities from your lack of knowledge about competent medical care....
Typically, a hostile environment will result in the brain chemistry becoming wacked-out. At that point, just altering the environment will no longer be effective - all you're doing is not making the problem worse, but you're not correcting it. However, just treating the brain chemistry won't help either - you'll temporarily fix things, but they'll eventually slide back downhill. You'll constantly have to add more and more of an offset, just to keep pace, and eventually the body will become resistant or die of an overdose.
The correct cure, in such a case, is to remedy the environment (or how the person interacts with it) PLUS medicine to offset the changes to the brain, possibly also some counselling to understand the errors in perception caused by the environment and/or brain chemistry.
What won't help is someone telling you it's all your fault. (If you know better, it's useless information and if you don't, it'll make things worse.) What is needed is not blame but perspective, some sort of solid ground you can aim for, and some plan of action on how to get there.
Another poster suggested I was a scientologist! What a laugh! They've no perspective at all! Anyone who can say that brain chemistry is never an issue is deluding themselves and others. Virtually every experience we have will alter our brain chemistry in some way, and if that way is harmful and becomes semi-permanent - or even permanent - then you will need to take medication to counteract that.
Brain chemistry rarely alters itself (although that does happen), so if you need medicines, there's an excellent chance that you'll need something else to deal with whatever caused the problem in the first place.
Does therapy have a place? Yes - but it's down the list. You might go to a physiotherapist after breaking bones severely in an accident to retrain your coordination. But you wouldn't go until AFTER receiving treatment for your injuries and AFTER your bones are mended. Bleeding to death on the physiotherapist's floor isn't going to help you very much.
ONCE you've got the underlying issues taken care of well enough for you to be able to have perspective (it doesn't have to be perfect, you just have to not be dead) THEN therapy makes sense. If you can't have perspective, all you're doing is wasting time and money. Therapy relies on you wanting to change, but you can't have a want if you aren't in a position to choose.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)