October 13, 2010, J.K. Wall of the Indianapolis Business Journal posted an article entitled “IU Shrink explores mental health blood tests.” According to Wall:

“Dr. Alexander B. Niculescu, a psychiatrist at the IU School of Medicine, has won a five-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to hunt for the presence of certain proteins in the blood that would indicate that a person suffers from a mood disorder, which afflicts one in five Americans.”

A blood test for bipolar disorder is one of the holy grails of psychiatry right now. Patients often ask me if there is such a test, and unfortunately, as of now, no such test exists. Even with ongoing research, it will be a very long time before a blood test is a realistic part of everyday clinical practice.

Currently, diagnosis remains a highly subjective process. A blood test or other forms of diagnostic testing, such as scans, would provide a much more accurate and reliable way of diagnosing bipolar and other mood disorders.

A blood test would also validate the medical nature of bipolar disorder, adding to the ammunition available to shoot down the common misconception that bipolar disorder is not a “real” illness.

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    Last reviewed: 14 Oct 2010