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Predictors of Suicidal Behavior Found In Blood
ananyo writes "Researchers may have found a way to potentially predict suicidal behaviour by analyzing someone's blood. Using blood samples taken by the coroner from nine men who had committed suicide, they found six molecular signs, or biomarkers, that they say can identify people at risk of committing suicide. To check whether these biomarkers could predict hospitalizations related to suicide or suicide attempts, the researchers analysed gene-expression data from 42 men with bipolar disorder and 46 men with schizophrenia. When the biomarkers were combined with clinical measures of mood and mental state, the accuracy with which researchers could predict hospitalizations was more than 80% (abstract)."
Can we get these people on the organ donation list?
...and mandate drugs to counteract whatever ails them.
Like in Larry Niven's Known Space series; registered schizophrenics were required to be medicated or face liquidation in the organ banks.
Or as in Brave New World, or THX-1138. Those worked out well.
I don't want to live in a world that will prevent me from committing suicide.
And how accurate were the "clinical measures of mood and mental state" by themselves?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
would be my guess, especially if they indicate a switch from expensive Scotch to cheap wine during the past year, indicating a decline in financial fortunes (following Sherlock Holmes).
So if a Vampire were to suck their blood, would it too want to commit suicide? Or are we vampires safe?
The G
So are we close to see suicidal induction happening? Just shoot your mother-in-law with one of these Suici-Darts and lend some ropes around. You will inherit her house within minutes!
We tend to find find these predictors however they mean a statically increase of something not necessary that action will occur.
There are people with all sorts of mental issues that are living productive and legal lives, because while their instincts may be to do something anti-social, we were taught to not do such, and we are well trained not to do that.
Suicide may have predictors for it, but it doesn't mean that the person will be Suicidal, even during tough times, however there will be an instinct, that they might need to fight, and work with.
Knowing this could help to be preemptive. But it isn't a death sentence.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I have a family member whom has mental health issues and she was suicidal for a good year in her early 20s, until she got on the right medication. Now she lives a productive life and is happy. Some mental issues can be solved with medication!
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
The list of eugenics propaganda is getting longer, and I'll have to study this to determine if it needs to go there. On a hunch, I'm guessing that it will. I'm not a MD, but wonder if this is even possible due to toxins the body produces right after death as well as another more obvious reason. Suicide is generally a result of depression as well as other symptoms. The obvious reason for this to fail is that currently there is no way (nor should there be) to test someones blood to determine if they are suffering from depression. They could of course determine levels of substances, but humans are adaptive and can live with a huge tolerance or lack of certain hormones, amino acids, etc...
Now maybe it's just me, but the summary seems extremely familiar to "Detecting mental illness by analyzing your tweets", and "Detecting mental illness by analyzing your social media habits" which we have seen within the last year and a half. This one is a bit better disguised, but not disguised enough.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
We need a blood sample to test for suicidal tendencies. Could you make a small cut in your wrist please?
Maybe this is perhaps a sign of severe depression rather than simply suicide. I read the article and depression wasn't mentioned until the end and only briefly. Happy people don't kill themselves.
As the researcher admits:
The next step, he says, is to look at the levels of these biomarkers in the general population and in other at-risk populations, such as those with depression or suffering from stress or bereavement. “Suicide is not just related to mental illness,” he says. “It’s a very complex behaviour (sic*).”
That might just be an understatement, there. Generalizing results to the population as a whole, as opposed to people with known disorders that already predispose them to a higher risk of suicide (and other behavior-related premature mortality) would be the interesting part if it worked.
*Yes, I know that "behaviour" is the correct spelling in British English, but since I'm writing this in the US, I feel obligated to note that I am not misspelling it in my version of written language. It's my way of honoring The Economist magazine's editorial policy, in reverse, that is.
I am not a crackpot.
If the blood is coming out of the patient's wrists in spurts, out of a gunshot wound to the head (where the patient has the gun in one hand and a note in the other), then it's likely the person is suicidal.
I am officially gone from
Soon tere will be biomarkers for other types of behaviour and then employers are going to want blood tests from perspective employees. Before you know it if you have marker xyz you'll be virtually unemployable.
Walk into any AA meeting and ask the members if they can exercise choice over their impuses.
Using blood samples taken by the coroner from nine men who had committed suicide, they found six molecular signs, or biomarkers, that they say can identify people at risk of committing suicide.... To check whether these biomarkers could predict hospitalizations related to suicide or suicide attempts, the researchers analysed gene-expression data from 42 men with bipolar disorder and 46 men with schizophrenia.
I'm curious to know how useful this information is at this stage... From wikipedia: "Statistics indicate that males die much more often by means of suicide than do females; however, reported suicide attempts are 3 times more common among females than males." Statistically, suicide is not the same as a suicide attempt. This really demands a similar study on women, or even better, all sexes in one study.
A lot of failed suicide attempts were never intended to be fatal, just pleas for attention or a variety of disorders. Successful suicides are very difficult to prosecute regardless of the legality.
Soon they will dispense with these formalities and simply check for the presence of pharmaceuticals in your blood (these are usually present in the conditions mentioned in the article so its just a matter of time until an academic study shows it). Since the doctors and hospitals themselves are usually responsible for creating this condition, they'll be able to justify forcibly holding anybody against their will. Boycott big pharma.
My only regret... is that I have... bonitis..
Not understanding the abstract. What kind of biomarkers? Do they indicate certain genes or do they indicate certain chemicals that are more prevalent during depression?
If they indicate certain chemicals, then could those chemicals perhaps be responsible for depressed people having worse health and less energy than happy people? Of course depression is usually due to a variety of reasons, but could their elimination perhaps help depressed people recover faster?
If they indicate certain genes, then that's a story I'm familiar with.
Tom Cruise said psychiatry was a sham. And he's an expert. You won't suppress my thetan levels you psycho-pharma shills!
I probably have six biomarkers in common with Charles Manson, provided you look hard enough. That doesn't mean I'm likely to be a serial killer.
And the biomarkers are caused by... {rolls dice} ...drinking coffee!
...drinking coffee can stave-off suicidal tendencies!
Tune in next week when... {flips coin}
Oh, and game shows are back!
Is blood outside of the body
“Suicide is not just related to mental illness,” he says. “It’s a very complex behaviour.”"
Self promoting prick. It's mental illness. Stop trying to elevate your work beyond what it is.
"Niculescu says that this type of work is usually done with much larger sample sizes but that he and his colleagues used rigorous, multi-step methods to weed out false positives."
You have a fucking small sample size. Deal with it! And the sample was that of men with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Not everyone who commits suicide is bipolar disorder or schizophrenic!! And in the end it was the clinical measures of mood and mental state that were the predictor of suicide, not the blood markers. In fact without the blood markers you can still predict people who would commit suicide. So what's the purpose of the blood markers? Could it be you have a product you want to sell.
How can a dead person sign a contract to allow their blood to be used in this research? Does their family get part of the grant money?
with regard to this article's claim: "researchers could predict hospitalizations at 80% in data from 42 men with bipolar disorder and 46 men with schizophrenia." Then, are Neuroleptic drugs the answer? From Wikipedia (Neuroleptic): "All antipsychotic drugs tend to block D2 receptors in the dopamine pathways of the brain. This means that dopamine released in these pathways has less effect. Excess release of dopamine in the mesolimbic pathway has been linked to psychotic experiences. It has also been proven[citation needed] less dopamine released in the prefrontal cortex in the brain, and excess dopamine released from all other pathways, has also been linked to psychotic experiences, caused by abnormal dopaminergic function as a result of patients suffering from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The additional effects on serotonin receptors may be why some of them can benefit the "negative symptoms" of schizophrenia.[87]" So, what receptor blocking does Thorazine offer, for example? From Wikipedia: "Dopamine receptors (subtypes D1, D2, D3 and D4), Serotonin receptors (5-HT1 and 5-HT2), with anxiolytic, and antiaggressive properties, Histamine receptors, 1- and 2-adrenergic receptors, and M1 and M2 muscarinic acetylcholine receptors." The count of receptors blocked are not well diminished with other Neuroleptics. No neuroleptic drug blocks only D2 or only (D2, 5-HT1, and 5-HT2.) If such a drug did exist, it would be reasonable to expect that everybody starts using it. The fact that the mental disorders listed have only been correlated to the D2 receptor also brings up this question: Are we just trying to prevent clients from experiencing a Power Trip? Back to the article's claim: "genes: predict suicidal behaviour by analyzing someone's blood; can identify people at risk of committing suicide." The judicial treatment of the word "schizophrenia" is (from observed judges) to define the term as "someone at risk to harm oneself or others." If I accept this as the definition, I lose faith with Neurologists and Psychiatrists. Libertarians are also on point as being deinstitutionalist because of the principle of noninitiation of force. A major decision from the courts on intervention/intitutionalization vs. rights was made on the subject [Can you force someone to sign up for Medicaid?] A typical three-week Hospital stay to address mental health Costs Federal Medicaid $48,000.00 According to a prominent court decision, Yes you Can force someone to sign up for Medicaid. Also, Hospitals offer no choice as to Which Neuroleptic is administered: In fact, most mental health patients are subject to Takedowns which include injections. In many cases in Hospitals, the involved Psychiatrist (who perscribes the drug used) has not met you. In most cases (eg. screaming patient), from what I hear, Ativan is used.
So when this test goes into practice, you've "only" got a 1-in-5 chance of unjustly being put into restraints in your hospital bed "for your own good"?
Apparently they have found a marker for suicide in bipolar and schizophrenic individuals but we should not assume that most suicides are among the mentally ill. It might be wonderful if we could test in the schools and locate individuals who will bloom into schizophrenia or mania so that treatment can come well before the signalling event. Manic depression will be quite an issue as people with this disorder tend to resist proper medication ardently. They tend to love the high side of the disease.