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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, Troll) by DannyB on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:54PM
There are good reasons why Big Pharma should invest in research like this, especially when they sell drugs known to make people want to commit suicide.
1. When people commit suicide because of your drugs, you've just lost a profitable customer. (Even if their insurance is paying.)
2a. If you find a cause, and a treatment -- in particular -- in the form of another drug, then you have another new drug you can sell to an existing customer.
2b. If you find a cause, but not a treatment in the form of another drug, then at least hospitals and institutions could profit from caring for the patent taking your first drug that causes suicidal feelings. (And if you have any ownership interest in these hospitals, then it is still profitable.)
Best practice is to NOT find a cure. That brings the revenue stream to an end, which is un-American.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.