2023-12-16 19:57:12
Depression leaves traces in the blood of those who suffer from it, through compounds detectable with a simple test that could reveal the people most at risk of suicide. This is what emerges from a study conducted by researchers at the University of California in San Diego, which reveals a connection between cellular metabolism and depression. The team also discovered that the way this disease affects cellular metabolism is different in men and women.
The findings, published in Translational Psychiatry, could help personalize care for mental health disorders and identify new potential targets for future drugs.
“Mental illnesses such as depression have effects and mechanisms that go well beyond the brain,” explains Robert Naviaux, Md, PhD, professor in the Department of Medicine, Pediatrics and Pathology at the University of California, San Diego. “Until about ten years ago It used to be difficult to study how whole-body chemistry affects our behavior and mood, but modern technologies like metabolomics help us listen to cells’ conversations in their native language, which is biochemistry.”
The researchers analyzed the blood of 99 study participants with depression refractory to available treatments and suicidal ideation, and of another 99 people without this disorder. Of the hundreds of different biochemicals circulating in the blood, the team found that five could be used as biomarkers to classify patients as most at risk. The five indicators to be evaluated, however, differ between men and women. In any case, Naviaux points out, “out of 100 people we would be able to correctly identify 85-90 with severe depression, at greater risk of taking their own life based on five metabolites in males and another 5 metabolites in females”.
Important for both sexes is the biomarker of mitochondrial dysfunction, which occurs when the energy-producing structures in our cells do not function properly. Mitochondria, the energy centers of cells, synthesize large quantities of a molecule called ATP which is also important for cell-to-cell communication: researchers hypothesize that this is the most poorly regulated function in people with suicidal ideation. “When ATP is outside the cell – explains Naviaux – it is a danger signal that activates dozens of protective pathways in response to some environmental stressors. We hypothesize that suicide attempts may actually be part of a more physiological impulse broad, aimed at stopping a stress response that has become unbearable on a cellular level.”
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