The First Blood Test Which Uses genetic markers to diagnose depression in Teens

The problem with using the usual method of diagnosing depression in teens just based on symptoms is that teens is that most teenagers have mood swing in this age period. It's important to diagnose and treat it in teens because if untreated there is a higher chance of these teens getting into substance abuse, social maladjustment, physical illness and suicide.

The study subjects included 14 adolescents with major depression who had not been clinically treated and 14 non-depressed adolescents, all between 15 to 19 years old. The depressed and control subjects were matched by sex and race.



"Eva Redei's, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and lead investigator of the study in her lab tested the adolescents' blood for 26 genetic blood markers of depression which had discovered in her previous decades long research withwith depressed and anxious rats .  She discovered 11 of the markers were able to differentiate between depressed and non-depressed adolescents. In addition, 18 of the 26 markers distinguished between patients that had only major depression and those who had major depression combined with anxiety disorder" (Science Daily).

The blood test will not only be able to test for depression but also the subtypes of depression and therefore raises hopes of treatments tailored to each individual needs. I think this is great because the depression symptoms are a kind of a vague way of diagnsing the symptom and especially the subtypes of it.