Suicide

Suicide is the act of someone intentionally taking his or her own life.  Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, with be more than 38,000 citizens successful ending their own lives each year.  This represents more than 105 suicides each day.  The number of attempted suicides is much higher.  In the United Sates there are approximately 25 attempted suicides for every 1 completed suicide.  There are approximately 1 million attempted suicides each year in the United Stated, with over 2,700 attempts each day. 
An individual’s decision to take his or her own life is complicated and is based on many different things, including genetic, social, and psychological factors.  There is no one predictor of suicide.   One individual with a family history of suicide, current depression, and financial troubles may commit suicide; whereas another man in a very similar situation with a similar history may not even think about suicide.  Suicide prediction is not a finite science, but years of research has shown several signs and symptoms to be significant risk factors for a future suicide attempt.

Risk Factors and Warning Signs

The following is a list of warning signs that are related to risk of suicide:

• Talking about wanting to die
• Taking about how one would kill oneself
• Talking about not being able to handle their emotional pain or life stressors
• Feeling like they are a burden to others
• Acting anxious
• Change in sleeping patterns
• Change in eating patterns
• Social withdrawal
• Increase in use of alcohol or drugs
• Instability – extreme mood swings

If you recognize these symptoms in yourself or in someone that you know, you can call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK(8255), or offer it as a resource to a friend. All calls are free and confidential.

Suicide is a very serious epidemic and more research is needed to determine risk factors and to discover what it is that that influences some individuals to choose to take their own lives while others choose not to do so.  Researchers recently published a study which talks about a possible link between risk of suicide and gene blood test results.

The Study

A study conducted at John Hopkins University looked at brain samples of deceased patients. The researchers found that patients who had died of suicide had significantly decreased levels of the SKA2 gene.  The researchers then broadened their study to individuals who were still living.  The researchers obtained blood samples from 325 individuals who had participated in the John Hopkins Center for Prevention Research study.  Based on the SKA2 gene and other personal characteristics, the researchers were able to predict which of the participants had thoughts of suicide or had previously attempted suicide.  The more serious the risk of suicide, the more accurately the researchers were able to predict.

The researchers believe that these results, if able to be replicated and confirmed, could have a significant impact of suicide prevention.  They proposed that blood testing could be done for patients with mental illness or for soldiers returning from combat to quickly assess who may need additional support.

The Critique

Although the study findings were statistically significant, it is not clear how practically significant the results may be.  The study reports that differences in the SKA2 gene can cause someone to be 1.15 times more likely to attempt suicide.  Each year approximately .05 percent of the United States Population attempts suicide.  So risk of attempted suicide in general is at .05.  If SKA2 gene differences represent a 1.15-fold increase to risk of suicide, as the study suggests, that extra risk factor would still only leave those individuals with approximately a .06 percent risk of attempting suicide in the future. This slight increase in risk is unlikely to be helpful in determining which individuals need more services and is nowhere as predictive as other gene findings have been.

Without the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation a woman has a 12% risk of developing breast cancer over her lifetime.  If the woman does carry that gene mutation she is more than four times more likely to develop breast cancer, bringing her risk up to approximately 50 percent.  This type of large percentage of risk may warrant a change in behavior, whereas the small change in suicide risk is slight enough that trying to take the gene into account is unlikely to make a practical difference.

The results of this study warrant further investigation and research; but the conclusions, as they stand now, do not point to a blood test being able to aid in suicide prevention.

If you are in need of blood testing, be sure to browse the wide selection of blood tests offered by Walk-In Lab today!