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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956 from a VAI press release:
A collaborative study from research teams in Sweden, the US and Australia published in Translational Psychiatry shows that suicidal patients have a reduced activity of an enzyme that regulates inflammation and its byproducts.
It is known that people who have attempted suicide have ongoing inflammation in their blood and spinal fluid. Now, a collaborative study from research teams in Sweden, the US and Australia published in Translational Psychiatry shows that suicidal patients have a reduced activity of an enzyme that regulates inflammation and its byproducts.
[...] Currently, there are no biomarkers for psychiatric illness, namely biological factors that can be measured and provide information about the patient's psychiatric health. If a simple blood test can identify individuals at risk of taking their lives, that would be a huge step forward, said [Professor Sophie] Erhardt, a Professor at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the Karolinska Institutet, who led the work along with [Professor Lena] Brundin.
The researchers analyzed certain metabolites, byproducts formed during infection and inflammation, in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid [CSF] from patients who tried to take their own lives. Previously it has been shown that such patients have ongoing inflammation in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid. This new work has succeeded in showing that patients who have attempted suicide have reduced activity of an enzyme called ACMSD, which regulates inflammation and its byproducts.
[Continues...]
[...] The substance that the enzyme ACMSD produces, picolinic acid, is greatly reduced in both plasma and in the spinal fluid of suicidal patients. Another product, called quinolinic acid, is increased. Quinolinic acid is inflammatory and binds to and activates glutamate receptors in the brain. Normally, ACMSD produces picolinic acid at the expense of quinolinic acid, thus maintaining an important balance.
[...] Several of the researchers have indicated that they have business interests, which are recognized in the article.
Having found these results in suicidal patients, the researchers are now trying to find out if this imbalance is also present in those with severe depression. They are also seeking to develop drugs that might activate the ACMSD enzyme and restore the balance between quinolinic and picolinic acids.
The full article is available: "An enzyme in the kynurenine pathway That governs vulnerability to suicidal behavior by regulating excitotoxicity and neuroinflammation" Translational Psychiatry, published online August 2, 2016, doi: 10.1038 / TP.2016.133.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @03:41PM
Ditto about that abyss. Don't worry, though. All this will be used for is holding non-suicidal patients against their will. More $$$ for the insurance companies and hospitals. "Oh, we did a standard blood panel and it looks like you're at risk for suicide, so we're going to have to put you in a straight jacket and keep you here until this inflammation goes down."
Suicide sounds better and better every day in the face of the modern profit-driven world.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:19PM
It's enough to make you want to KILL THEM ALL.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @05:14PM
You jest, but my biggest fear is that humanity will become the Borg before I'm 6 feet under.
I leave it up to others whether or not they want to be Borg in that event. I wouldn't.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday August 16 2016, @06:18PM
It depends on how becoming the Borg would affect our minds. If we are controlled into taking certain actions, but are forced to watch ourselves take those actions with a desire to change them but an inability to do so, I would choose death. It's horrifying in a "I have no mouth but must scream" sort of way.
If, however, our minds were altered into taking certain actions of our own free will, well it's horrifying from the outside but probably rather pleasant on the inside. The only way I can see that working is if we were in some way made dumb to any negative associations of those actions. But if I am doing things that I want to do, regardless of where that impulse came from, without any negative associations, it is no harm done to me. I have lost the biblical fruit of knowledge, the knowledge of good and evil, and while that is horrifying from the outside it is probably quite pleasant on the inside. Ignorance is bliss, you see, and without that knowledge one approaches an innocence free of the burden of sin. At that point we would be mere agents of the machine, our fate not under our own control, but innocent and pure in and of ourselves. Whether this works out well for us depends entirely upon the benevolence of the machine.
So I guess what it comes down to is what goal the Borg we become will serve. Will it be the harmonization of life on Earth as a way to reduce chaos and conflict, ensuring a stable and fruitful future for life as we know it? Or will it be the fragmentation of humanity into several mindless groups playing out a meaningless power struggle for this world's elite?
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 1) by gmrath on Tuesday August 16 2016, @07:06PM
Scenario: You are at your doctor's office on a follow up visit to review the results of your yearly physical exam. During that exam a blood draw was taken; unbeknownst to you, by government mandate an additional test was added to the standard panel. The doctor walks in.
DOCTOR: Good morning Mr. So-and-so. Your check up was good and the blood tests show that your cholesterol levels are in the normal range. There is, however, one level that is a little lower than normal and we are concerned about that.
YOU: Oh, oh, and what's that?
DOCTOR: You have a slightly reduced level of a certain enzyme that indicates a possible suicide risk and by law we are required to inform the authorities who are now on their way to your home to confiscate any and all firearms and ammunition in your possession for your own safety. In addition your name has been added to the national suicide watch list and you are no longer legally allowed to purchase and/or possess firearms and ammunition and are barred from gun shops and gun ranges. Except for that one small finding, your in great health. Have a good day.
The authorities do confiscate your firearms shorty thereafter along with any certifications and licenses that go along with them which is going to make things tough around the old homestead since your job is as a member of the local university police force. Your guns are gone an you are out of a job and there appears no recourse. Yes. The old fuckeroo.
Perhaps the last part's a little far-fetched, but lets go on a bit more. Of course you retain legal counsel immediately and do battle with the bureaucracy. After months, if not years, you've lost your house, are divorced, burned through your life savings and are no closer to righting the wrong. How do you know there was wrongdoing? You've had multiple blood tests of every imaginable kind and they all come back with the same result: There is no indication of any reduction in that particular enzyme or any other irregularities. Oh, and along the way, you find you've been included in another list, the national no-fly list; after all you are a documented suicidal maniac.
While all that was going on certain discrepancies were discovered at the lab that analyzed blood and other tests on contract for your doctor's office. The authorities tried to cover up the investigation, but your legal team, now working pro bono, got wind of it and worked hard to discover what was going on. The investigation revealed that an employee tampered with apparently random tests and submitted false results. For the attorneys, this is now a crusade. The lab tech, no longer employed by the lab, turned out to be a radical anti-gun activist and believed that getting firearms out of the hands of citizens in any way possible was what he must do. You were just unlucky in that yours was one of the faked tests. Your doctor was no help either; turns out he believes that legal firearm ownership by citizens is a public health crisis. The lab tech is now in jail and you have a new doctor.
Now that you found out what happened it's unclear what if anything can be done other than listen to all the apologies. Maybe a law suit or two would do. Your firearms are long gone and if your are like me, the few that you owned were of high quality, valued in the low- to mid four figures; no doubt the 'authorities" split them up amongst themselves, but you'll never know for sure. So, things are returning to as close to normal as possible, you have a new job, a new girlfriend, maybe a better future.
Oh, and you're still on the no-fly list. . .
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @07:54PM
No, your story is too optimistic. There's no way you got a new job, because HR ran a background check and you failed. There's no way you got a new girlfriend, either, because your dates also ran "instant checkmate" and you failed that, too.
No, the only way your story can end is this: you become a recluse, and you curse society with every breath you take for as long as you live, because you have no future.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday August 16 2016, @11:01PM
Cool story, bro. It's so filled with ridiculous assumptions that it would be laughable, if it weren't so pathetic.
Good job.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by gidds on Wednesday August 17 2016, @01:41PM
Hmmm, forgive me if I'm jumping to an unwarranted conclusion here, but are you by any chance American?
[sig redacted]