Albumin decrement in depression and cholesterol decrement in mania

Within all psychiatric inpatients over a 4-year period, on admission depressives showed serum albumin 5.4% lower (P less than 0.001) than non-psychiatric controls. Similarly, manics showed cholesterol 10% lower (P less than 0.0005) and serum calcium/protein ratio 2.2% higher (P less than 0.05) than controls. These deviations suggest a tendency towards dietary aberrations in these patients of potential medical significance. These tests had shown the most distinct variation with diagnosis on split-half discriminant function analysis of routine chemistry and hematology tests of 107 patients with mania, 132 with depression, 67 with schizophrenia, 18 with schizoaffective illness, and 83 non-psychiatric controls admitted for elective surgery.