Metabolic biomarkers of clinical outcomes in severe mental illness (METPSY): protocol for a prospective observational study in the Hub for metabolic psychiatry.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Study protocol reporting no empirical data or human results.
PubMed 39948527 · doi:10.1186/s12888-025-06579-9
What was done
This is a study protocol for a prospective observational cohort study (METPSY) designed to recruit 120 young adults (aged 16–25 years) in Scotland with major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or no severe mental illness (controls). The protocol outlines in-person clinical evaluations (SCID-5) and blood draws for untargeted metabolomic profiling (RHIMMS) at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months. It also incorporates remote assessments at 3 and 9 months (Ecological Momentary Assessments, wrist actigraphy, continuous glucose monitoring) and continuous home sleep tracking via radar monitors over the 12-month period.
What was found
As a study protocol, the abstract reports no numbers or clinical findings.
Why it matters
The study outlines a multimodal phenotyping framework to investigate prospective links between granular metabolic, circadian, and clinical trajectories in youth with severe mental illness.
Limits
The publication provides no empirical results. The proposed sample size is modest (n = 120 split across four groups), which may limit power for complex machine learning models. As an observational cohort design, it cannot definitively establish causality between metabolic alterations and psychiatric outcomes.
Cited by
- supports The Medical Research Council and Baszucki foundation co-funded a £4 million program to establish a metabolic psychiatry hub in the UK.