Biological factors and health

Abstract

There is often a lack of identified causal biological mechanisms or biological differences of structure or process for many psychiatric diagnostic constructs. There is a lack of useful biomarkers common to all people who meet criteria for a psychiatric diagnostic construct that differentiates them from the healthy population. This can also be the case for general medical conditions for both aetiology and differences in structure or process and sometimes lack of useful biomarkers but this occurs to a lesser extent. There are also occasions when medical conditions cause mental health problems directly. For this reason doctors will always be involved in mental health to some degree and will use diagnostic constructs to describe these conditions as they are familiar with diagnosis in their medical practice. There are examples of clear biological abnormalities that are often detected accidentally that do not require treatment. Medically unexplained or functional symptoms/syndromes are commonly seen in general medicine, although the term ‘medically unexplained’ is contentious. Many diagnostic constructs—medical or psychiatric—involve complex polygenetic interactions with the environment.