Ischemia modified albumin: A potential marker for global metabolic risk in generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder.

Objective: Ischemia modified albumin (IMA) is an altered type of albumin produced due to exposure to hypoxia, acidosis, inflammation, or oxidative stress. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the serum IMA levels in newly diagnosed and medication-naive generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and panic disorder (PD) patients. Method: This cross-sectional study included medication-naive 23 GAD, 25 PD patients, and 28 healthy controls. The participants were evaluated with a sociodemographic form, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). Venous blood samples were collected from all participants, and IMA levels and routine biochemical parameters were measured. Results: There was no statistically significant difference between three groups in terms of age, gender, body mass index (BMI) and routine biochemical markers of the participants (p>0.05). The GAD and PD groups had significantly higher serum IMA levels than healthy controls (p<0.01), whereas there was no statistically significant difference in IMA levels between GAD and PD groups (p=0.994). Additionally, correlation analysis showed a positive correlation between IMA levels with BDI and BAI scores (r=0.449 and r=0,632, respectively, p<0.001). Discussion: Higher IMA levels in patients with GAD and PD may indicate metabolic stress on these patients. Anxiety disorders may tend to various biochemical disturbances, and IMA could be an important new marker that indicates global metabolic risk in such patients. This research is the first study that evaluates IMA levels in anxiety disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]