Schizophrenia Daily News Blog

Schizophrenia linked to Auto-immune Diseases

The March issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry included a paper in which Dr. William W. Eaton, (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore), and colleagues examined the association between schizophrenia and a range of autoimmune diseases by evaluating three databases.

Included in the analysis were 7704 people diagnosed with schizophrenia between 1981 and 1998 and their parents, as well as a ramdom sample of people chosen as controls and their parents.

It was reported that people with a history of one or more autoimmune diseases had a 45 percent higher risk of schizophrenia, according to the authors. Schizophrenia patients had a higher prevalence of nine autoimmune disorders compared with comparison subjects.

Compared with the parents of controls, the parents of schizophrenic patients had a higher prevalence of 12 autoimmune diseases, including -- thyrotoxicosis, celiac disease, acquired hemolytic anemia, interstitial cystitis, and Sjogren's syndrome.

"In future clinical studies, it may be interesting to search for a family history of autoimmune diseases ... in patients with schizophrenia," Eaton's team suggests. "Eventually, individual or family disease comorbidity may help to elucidate shared etiologic pathways."

Source: American Journal of Psychiatry