I had no clue that it could take a long time to recover effectively from the effects of depression. Genetic tests may someday hold the key for better psychiatric treatment, with more independent research.
Patients whose doctors recommend these tests should take the advice with a very large grain of salt.
In accordance with a patient quoted in the Boston Globe articles, for now it’s a cool piece of science fiction. For example, an investigation by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, published yesterday in the Boston Globe, found questionable evidence and rife conflicts of interest in an industry unregulated by the Food and Drug Administration, the tests may not be all they’re cracked up to be. As one researcher wrote in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine earlier this year, the result are claims are not harmless and should be quite dangerous. More patients are receiving genetic tests for mental illness to may be most effective.
It’s easy to understand why these sorts of tests should be appealing.
More than 42 million Americans about one in five suffers from mental illness nearly any year.
Even the most accurate diagnosis doesn’t guarantee that a particular kind of treatment is planning to work, Diagnostic criteria can be subjective and are often on the basis of ‘selfreports’. As a result, many patients find their type and dose of medication changing until their doctors find the right match a ‘trial and error’ approach that is frequently frustrating. This is the case. In the meantime, companies are releasing dozens more tests and plan to publish a lot more scientific studies. Furthermore, the FDA does not regulate these tests and, though the agency has announced that it will do in the next nine years, it hasn’t put forth a specific timeline to do so, as of now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObOX_VAVh0A
Generally, in the process of the investigation, the reporters found that much of the evidence used to support the claims of various testing companies had been published in press releases, not in peer reviewed scientific journals.
a lot of the doctors prescribing these tests for their patients, every of which costs a couple of thousand dollars and usually a couple of hundred out of pocket, have financial relationships with the test companies that they are reluctant to disclose.
While so it is certainly a growing area of study, the tests aren’t yet accurate or specific enough to be used in this way.
For most, the methodology behind the tests which genes they’re testing, exactly have never been independently reviewed or verified. Genetic tests promise a way to narrow down the treatment that should work best for a patient without the trial and error approach. In line with the article, over the past three years more than 600000 patients been given these tests. It’s been convincing.