NEW BLOOD TEST PREDICTS SCHIZOPHRENIA

NOBEL-LEVEL BREAKTHROUGH
IDENTIFIES FUTURE SCHIZOPHRENIA
ALLOWING ADVANCE NEUROPROTECTION

By Helen Borel, R.N.,Ph.D.

According to Reuters Health Information via Medscape.com, a panel of 26 blood "biomarkers" can PREDICT SCHIZOPHRENIA in patients "years before symptoms appear".  The University of Cambridge (U.K.) scientist who developed this test, Dr. Sabine Bahn along with her research colleagues said, "The biomarker panel...represents a validated set of biomarkers from which a definitive signature for diagnosis and prediction of schizophrenia ...could be developed.  [T]he use of such a test in conjunction with a psychiatric assessment will help position schizophrenia among other biological disorders, such as diabetes and heart disease...providing hope for better diagnostic and treatment approaches."

This, to all healthcare professionals who've ever treated and taken care of patients with
schizophrenia, is marvelous news. Also, in recent years, the concept of NEUROPROTECTION (advance treatment of a known brain condition to forestall severe and worsening symptoms, particularly in the case of impending schizophrenia) has been put forth...and I believe it's in practice when some psychiatrists are treating with psychotropic protection patients who haven't even manifested the disease yet, but who are identified as future schizophrenics.

Because of the advent of this panel of 26 biomarkers for impending schizophrenia...
And because of the REVOLUTION IN THE CARE OF SCHIZOPHRENICS and in
the potential to ward off this awful brain disease altogether by pre-empting via
NEUROPROTECTIVE PHARMACEUTICALS, even the manifestation of this illness...

HERE IS MY RESPONSE at the Medscape site TO THIS WONDERFUL NEWS:
This report of biomarkers for incipient schizophrenia represents a significant breakthrough in
anticipating the approach of schizophrenia in a patient BEFORE this severe brain disorder
manifests. It will be wonderful when doctors and other healthcare professionals can intercept,
with prophylactic pharmaceuticals, this dire disease by providing what has been called, by others, "NEUROPROTECTION".

The proposal that schizophrenia may soon be managed "like other biological disorders" such as
diabetes mellitus and cardiac disease...more in approaches that ward off drastic symptoms
(e.g. excess blood glucose, e.g. bradycardia or atrial fibrillation) such as protecting identified
vulnerable patients from the development of delusions and hearing voices and disordered
behaviors...seems like a miracle to us who trained and worked in a time when "schizophrenia"
meant "hopelessly forever mentally deranged" and lifetime protective care was essential.  

The scientists who imagined and developed this kind of "pre-diagnostic" 
tool for predicting schizophrenic propensity with its promise for directing 
"pre-treatment prophylaxis" against this tragic illness should be candidates for 
The Nobel Prize in Medicine.  
Helen Borel,RN,PhD...Medical/Psych/Pharm and Fiction Writer and PsychoTherapist

©  copyright 2015 Dr. Helen Borel. All rights reserved.

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