Mental disorder has always one basis for scientific studies. Numerous facts regarding each disorder continually emerge and we are now living in a more advanced generation. IFL then reported that a reliable method in distinguishing bipolar disorder from major depression has emerged. This discovery can change thousands of lives. Researchers at Chonqing Medical University in China found out that Major Depression can be distinguished from Bipolar Disorder v\by using a urine sample.
The Journal Proteome then made a statement pointing out a conflict that can occur when a disorder isn't properly diagnosed stating:
"Multiple depressive episodes usually occur prior to the first manic episode in many bipolar patients. A large percentage of BD subjects are incorrectly treated with antidepressants in clinical practice. The consequences can be lethal. Selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac and Celexa probably don't help people with bipolar. SSRIs are alleged to increase suicide risk among bipolar patients; a major concern since bipolar sufferers have suicide rates around 20 times the population as a whole."
Efforts have been made in alerting doctors to the dangers of misdiagnosis, and the doctor's only basis is subtle signs that a patient would project. The Chongquing Hospital team then made a breakthrough in identifying the difference between bipolar and MDD.
As per Medical Daily, researchers gathered urine samples coming from both patients suffering from MMD and Bipolar Disorder. They then combines numerous analytical technique for them to be able to examine the metabolites in these samples with the hopes of finding biological markers that can lead them into differentiating between two sets of patients.
The team has to go through a combination of gas- chromatography- mass spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance. After finishing these meticulous chemical analysis, the results then allowed them to come up with bio-marker panels for all of the patients, they then discovered that 20 differential metabolites were held responsible for differentiating bipolar disorder from MMD. Higher levels of metabolites were present for patients with bipolar disorder, 14 of which were significantly charged.
