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# New blood test may help diagnose depression?
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/depression_0424120805/
- Published: 2012-04-24T21:03:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T16:23:18.000Z
- Description: Northwestern researchers led by Eva Redei tested blood from 14 teenagers with major depression and 14 without, ages 15 to 19, for a set of genetic markers. Redei says an objective lab test could allow earlier diagnosis and reduce the stigma that leaves depressed teens untreated.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Drug, Health News, #vivvo-import

By Maria Cendejas

Diagnosing depression in teens, differentiating mental illness from normal mood swings can be hard. Untreated depression in teen years makes them more vulnerable to later substance abuse, social maladjustment, physical illness and suicide, according to Time.

A professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Eva Redei said, “Depression in adolescents affects basically every component of their thinking and makes everything very difficult psychologically and socially.” 

A depression diagnosis in teens relies on their descriptions of symptoms and their physicians' subjective observations. 

The new study suggests a blood test can help identify major depression by looking for a specific set of genetic markers in the blood. The breakthrough could lead to earlier diagnoses that may not only allow for better individualized treatment but also help to lessen the stigma associated with mental illness.

The lead researcher Redei said, “The idea is that if you have an objective measure that is similar to any other lab test, it will bring mental illness into the same arena as other illnesses.” 

“The stigma attached to depression and counseling is one of the reasons 25% of depressed teenagers go untreated. The test could decrease the stigma since no one could say, just get yourself together. There is a set and defined imbalance shown in the test. Patients will feel less ostracized and will be more likely to see a physician,” she said. 

Redei and her team looked at teens from the Research Institute of Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio and they analyzed data from 14 teens with major depression and 14 nondepressed teens all ages 15 to19\. Redei had previously identified in studies of lab rats and they now tested the teens blood for 26 genetic markers of major depression. They found that 11 markers showed up in depressed teens but not in their healthy peers. Not only that, 18 of the markers could also distinguish teens with depression alone or depression with other anxiety disorders.

"It’s similar to cholesterol testing. If the levels are not within the normal range, they are flagged. The genetic markers came from decades of research on severely anxious and depressed rats. The markers identified in the rats’ blood were compared with the markers found in the humans," said Redei. 

The study size was small and additional research is still needed. 

Redei said, "This is really the beginning, the fact that we were able to diagnose depression in this small study is very promising."

The findings carry an exciting potential, but Dr. Adelaide Robb, a child-and-adolescent psychiatrist at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., stresses that it's still too early to consider the problem solved. 

"Taking something from an animal model and saying it means something in people is making a big leap,” she said. "A finding among 14 is not the same as saying something is present in 1,000 people."

"If we could identify several subtypes of depression, we could, hopefully, target treatments for subsections of people with certain abnormal neurochemicals," she said. "But parents still need to look at this critically. I don’t want to see people trying to get this done when you can still be diagnosed with a clinical interview."

One thing teens or whoever are suspected to suffer depression may take some vitamin D supplements or go exposed to a lot of sunshine. Vitamin D deficiency is linked to depression, according to previous studies.