Schizophrenia is linked to lack of vitamin D in the womb, claims new study

The causes of schizophrenia have long been a mystery, but new research has just revealed an intriguing clue. A long-term study of 2,602 individuals has confirmed a link between vitamin D deficiency at birth and developing schizophrenia later in life.

Although most patients don't show signs of the disorder until the age of 15, neurologists have previously hypothesised that it starts in the womb. There's a growing body of evidence that supports this idea - but the exact mechanisms are still unknown.

There's pretty solid evidence that it's genetic, and it's also possible that there's more than one factor at play, at least in some cases.

We know that vitamin D is vital to the absorption of calcium in the bones, and a deficiency can lead to disorders such as osteoporosis and rickets, but we still haven't accounted for its full range of functions in the body.

Now, based on this recent data, it looks like this nutrient could play a role in the development of schizophrenia.

"Schizophrenia is a group of poorly understood brain disorders characterised by symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions and cognitive impairment," said neuroscientist John McGrath of the Queensland Brain Institute in Australia and Aarhus University in Denmark, senior author on the paper.

"The new study that was published this week shows that in a very large sample of Danish babies ... those that have a vitamin D deficiency at birth have a 44 percent increased risk of getting schizophrenia as an adult."

The study, conducted in Denmark, made use of the Danish National Register, an anonymised database of health information that is used to study health trends and statistics.

The researchers identified 2,602 individuals born between 1981 and 2001 who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia as young adults, and looked at the concentration of vitamin D in blood samples taken from these individuals as newborn babies.

They then compared this to age- and sex-matched controls who did not go on to develop schizophrenia. The result was a clear difference - vitamin D could account for as much as 8 percent of Denmark's schizophrenia cases, the researchers said.

The clue was a previously identified link between being born in winter or spring in high-latitude regions such as Denmark - a time when there is considerably less sunlight, which promotes vitamin D production in the body - and an increased risk of schizophrenia.

They hypothesised that the reason might be a vitamin D deficiency, and used the Denmark database to investigate.

Source: sciencealert.com

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