14 DAY TRIAL // Investigators with the Columbia University New York State Psychiatric Institute determined in a new study that suffering from anxiety makes bipolar disorder patients experience more severe symptoms.
In other words, anxiety tends to worsen aspects of BPD, such as the number and seriousness of suicidal thoughts, the frequency and intensity of manic episodes, and the severity of depression symptoms.
NYSPI investigator and study leader, Regina Sala, MD, reveals statistics showing that emergency room admission rates are twice as high for BPD+anxiety patients than for their peers who only have BPD.
Most of these admissions are on account of severe depression symptoms, she adds. The conclusions this study yielded are very worrying, because more than 60 percent of all BPD patients will suffer from an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives.
In addition, more than 40 percent of all BPD sufferers developed two or more anxiety disorders during their lives. This could represent grounds to classify bipolar disorders as a public health issue. Treating BPD, associated conditions and their combined effects costs millions of dollars annually.
NYSPI experts used health data covering about 1,600 adults in the United States for this research, PsychCentral reports. The information was extracted from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC).
Details of the new investigation, which was supported by the Alicia Koplowitz Foundation and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), appear in the latest issue of the esteemed medical Journal of Psychiatric Research.
One of the possible routes experts could take to address this health issue would be to develop a test that could detect anxiety in BPD patients very early on. Applying therapies in the early stages of the conditions could reduce their development rates considerably, and make them easier to manage.
In addition to reducing the risk of suicide, and the intensity of other symptoms, this approach would also improve the quality of life for people suffering from bipolar disorders. Patients have a lot of problems at work, in society, and tend to abuse illegal substances more often than their peers.