Abstract
The depressive disorder (DD) is thought to become the second most important cause of disability in 2020 and affective disorders are on the fourth place in complete invalidity causes in the Czech Republic (CR). The incidence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) increases steadily with age even in the CR.
In the pathogenesis of AD and DD, the metabolism of fatty acids and sterol lipids, is changed, and these changes are connected with insulin resistance, oxidative stress and inflammatory processes. Response to antidepressant treatment is unpredictable, the percentage of treatment resistant depression being up to 30% depending on the criteria.
So, the risk factors (biochemical, personality, etc.) are now being searched for, which could predict success of the treatment modality. In the case of AD, nowadays, there are no disease-modifying therapies, due to the impossibility to detect the disease before the stage characterized with memory loss and functional decline.
Current methods to diagnose preclinical stage of the disease are either invasive, time-consuming or expensive. Blood based biomarkers could identify the individuals at risk of the AD developing.
Lipid metabolism has been implicated in the pathogenesis of both DD and AD. Accordingly, a short overview of blood lipidomic studies (e.g. liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, direct infusion mass spectrometry) aiming to identify both early AD stages and DD subtypes, is presented.