Low Vitamin D Linked to Schizophrenia

Babies born with low vitamin D levels are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia later in life, researchers from the Queensland Brain Institute have found.

But the researchers say the good news from the study is that it suggests it may be possible to prevent schizophrenia.

John McGrath from the Queensland Brain Institute says there have been suggestions for some time that there may be a link between sunlight, vitamin D and brain development. He says it is increasingly clear children with low vitamin D levels are more likely to develop schizophrenia.

"For the babies who had very low vitamin D, their risk was about twice as high as those babies who had optimal vitamin D," said McGrath.

"But the amazing thing was that the study that was based in Denmark, where low vitamin D is quite common, we found that if vitamin D is linked to schizophrenia our statistics suggest that it could explain about 40 percent of all schizophrenias. That's a much bigger effect than we're used to seeing in schizophrenia research."

While the simplest way to get enough vitamin D is to spend more time in the sun, it remains unclear whether there are fewer cases of schizophrenia in a country like Australia which sees a lot more sunlight.

"We don't have high-quality data on that, but some statistics suggest we do have slightly lower incidences and prevalence of schizophrenia," said McGrath.

"Like many other diseases, like multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia tends to be more common in places further away from the equator. And if you're born in winter and spring you tend to have a slightly increased risk of schizophrenia also, and that was one of the original pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that led us to wonder maybe vitamin D could be implicated."
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