Predictors of Suicidal Behavior Found In Blood 209
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)."
Hmmm... (Score:1, Interesting)
Let's Test Everyone... (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
Sounds like more eugenics propaganda (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:I disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
Who vs. whom, what are you, British? While you're at it, why not complain using "you" instead of having the separate subject and object forms, thou and thee. Sorry, but subject/object forms in English have been dying for around 1000 years. It ain't German anymore. It's become an analytic rather than a synthetic language.
P.S. Couldn't help myself. Nothing more fun than outdoing the pedantry of someone else.
P.P.S. Next time let's discuss the singular "they", and how it was absurd to try and impose Latin rules on English.