New Study: No Genes to Predict “Mental Illness”

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A new study of about 50,000 people failed to find any genes that influenced “mental illness.” David Curtis conducted the research at UCL Genetics Institute, University College London. The study was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders. 

“The results obtained from this study are completely negative,” Curtis writes.
“No gene is formally statistically significant after correction for multiple testing, and even those which are ranked highest and lowest do not include any which could be regarded as being biologically plausible candidates,” he adds.
Going further, he writes, “The distribution of results is exactly as one would expect by chance.”

The study used data from exome-sequenced participants in the UK Biobank dataset. The defining question was, “Have you ever seen a psychiatrist for nerves, anxiety, tension or depression?” to which 5,872 responded “Yes” and 43,862 responded “No.” These two groups were then compared.

One limitation of the study is that this is an inexact method—people may have psychiatric diagnoses but be treated by their general practitioner rather than a psychiatrist, for example. However, Curtis defends the use of this question as it may have more effectively captured people with more severe mental health concerns. Most importantly, it was a question that the UK Biobank participants had already answered.

Curtis also recently published another large gene sequencing study focusing on schizophrenia, which also came up negative. In the article reporting on that study, Curtis and co-author Thivia Balakrishna wrote, “The main conclusion of this investigation is a negative one” and noted that they had found no clinically significant genetic variants that influenced schizophrenia.

In the current article, Curtis concludes, “It seems unlikely that depression genetics research will implicate specific genes having a substantial impact on the risk of developing psychiatric illness severe enough to merit referral to a specialist until far larger samples become available.”

However, requiring samples larger than 50,000 people even to begin to detect a supposed genetic effect on “mental illness” means that any such effect may be negligible.

Previous research supports this finding. Other studies have found that genetics explains less than 1%, or at most 2.28%, of the risk for various psychiatric diagnoses.

 

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Curtis, D. (2021). Analysis of 50,000 exome-sequenced UK Biobank subjects fails to identify genes influencing the probability of developing a mood disorder resulting in psychiatric referral. Journal of Affective Disorders, 281, 216-219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.12.025 (Link)

19 COMMENTS

  1. Should the title of the paper been “Surviving While Being Made Negligible”? To understand the structure of the biologies also needs integration with the ecologies by which imaginations sift out the truth or the various a truths. Then variation and purest chance imaginable that challenges the prevailing logic can be articulated to the hears and eyes and senses that are ready. Experiments and studies without bias becomes a basis for an awakening to what the medical establishment has been doing for years. Perhaps a question posed to those surveyed might have been, “Have you ever left a psyciatrist office without being offered or given a prescription?” Is the sound and presence of the madness tied into the “Ka-Ching, Ka-Ching” of the cash register to advance supply and demand while ignoring health”? Oh, excuse me, the slide the card, insert the chip, as the genderless of technologies valueless or valuemore our lives? Do those around you begin to come forward in love or are they stirred up to hate? And if so, where does that emotion emerge in these studies?

    Is the madness is in the murders where family and agents liscened to keep laws and order have a fealty to the orders rather than the principles articulated in the employment papers. Yet, with only a right side and left side of the brain (as “normally thought”, the actions still seem to be giving the orders that fail to detox. The purpose of LIFE seems to be made into sausage through an anticiapted revenue streams for the malignments of power.

    Can you map the energy expended in solving this equation of inequality?

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  2. The reasoning behind these notions is pretty sad, as psychiatric “diagnoses” are just behavioral descriptions that tell you nothing about their causes.
    “Mauve Factor” is a good example. Psychiatrists don’t believe it has any validity because it shows up in a variety of “diagnostic” categories, even though the symptomology of these patients is constant, no matter what “diagnostic” groups they’re placed into (and all will respond to treatment with mega B6 and zinc, no matter what “diagnostic” group they’re place into).

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    • Wow, is this only the 100th time or so that this finding has been made? Maybe we need to spend 20 more years testing to REALLY make sure that there isn’t the SLIGHTEST correlation…

      They are saying that psych research has a “replication problem.” Maybe that’s because they’re framing it wrong – they DO get replication again and again that their hypotheses and theories ARE WRONG. But since it doesn’t validate their preconceived prejudices, they consider it “failure to replicate” instead of the clear and repeated replication that their hypothesis holds no water.

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  3. Rather than spending time and money looking for a gene, I suggest putting all those resources into teaching how to stop the cycle of abuse. My Mom was abused, I was abused and labeled Bipolar 1 then abused some more at institutions/ “hospitals”. My son will not be abused as long as I am here.

    I was terrified that for no reason just genetics my son would wake up one day and go psychotic. Thank all of you for informing me that is not how it works.

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  4. Thank you for this article.

    I think I finally get it. We’re all caught up looking at the results of such studies when really the genetic causes of “mental illness” research has a deeper meaning which is… crazy is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.

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  5. This is interesting academically because other studies have indicated that there are some mental conditions people seem to be born with. The conclusion was that those conditions must have a genetic component.

    This is a false conclusion because genes are not the only way a person can be born with something! Ian Stevenson’s work on strange birth marks makes this very clear. Some of his past life research subjects had odd birth marks. He found, where he was able to find documentation, that these marks corresponded to wounds inflicted on the previous body which led to its death.

    This is only one of many ways that a being can be born with something because of past life experiences. The sooner we can get used to the fact that this is really the way life works, the better off everyone will be!

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  6. It is only in the “research” “studies” that the bonkers field of psychiatry is trying desperately to keep alive
    the empire.,…They built on bullshit, but there is only so much bullshit you can add before it crumbles completely.
    That IS what is happening hence more ads all around us. Desperation is now their leader.
    There will be a tipping point, it’s not an endless supply despite what they think. That endless supply eventually has to see good results and it’s NOT happening.

    Many of the older shrinks cringe at the crap ads, the crap pretentious research, the crap “diagnosis” and crap “medications”.
    The one malady many shrinks suffer from is lack of guts and manhood/womanhood. That or else just as daft as a rock. I doubt I can feel sorry for any shrink over the age of 50 who is still a chickenshit and won’t come out of his club of BS.

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