Schizophrenia itself can lead to obesity, study suggests

Written By : Medha Baranwal |Medically Reviewed By : Dr. Kamal Kant Kohli Published On 2022-07-19T09:45:00+05:30 | Updated On 19 July 2022 2:35 PM IST

China: Researchers from China in a recent study in Frontiers in Psychiatry have reported that schizophrenia (SC) itself can increase body mass index (BMI) and can easily result in obesity.

"More attention should be paid to the monitoring of blood metabolism indicators in order to reduce obesity risk and improve patients' quality of life," Jiaquan Liang, Department of Psychiatry, The Third People's Hospital of Foshan, Foshan, China, and colleagues wrote in their study.

Schizophrenia is one of the most serious of all mental disorders. The use of some antipsychotics has been linked to weight gain and metabolic abnormalities. This led some people to believe that obesity in SC is mainly caused by antipsychotics, however, there is no clarity on whether SC itself can lead to obesity. The researchers' team, therefore, aimed to understand the body mass index and body fat metabolism of schizophrenia.

For this purpose, they collected 185 first-episode drug-naive SC and 59 healthy controls (HCs) from the Third People's Hospital of Foshan, Guangdong, China, and distinguished their course of the disease.

Key findings of the study include:

Excluding the drug factors, the longer the course of SC, the more obvious the increase of BMI and the higher the proportion of obesity.
BMI was positively correlated with age, course of the disease, fasting blood glucose (FBG), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), triglyceride (TG), and total cholesterol (TC), and negatively correlated with high-density lipoprotein (HDL).
The results of regression analysis were further proof that age (B = 0.094), duration (B = 0.081), FBG (B = 0.987), and TG (B = 0.918) were the risk factors for the increase of BMI. HDL (B = -2.875) was the protective factor.

The researchers conclude, "schizophrenia itself can increase BMI and easily lead to obesity. In order to reduce obesity risk and improve the quality of life of patients more attention should be paid to the monitoring of blood metabolism indicators."

Reference:

Liang J, Cai Y, Xue X, Li X, Li Z, Xu C, Xie G and Yu Y (2022) Does Schizophrenia Itself Cause Obesity? Front. Psychiatry 13:934384. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.934384

Frontiers in Psychiatryschizophreniaobesity

Source : Frontiers in Psychiatry

Medha Baranwal

MSc. Biotechnology

Medha Baranwal joined Medical Dialogues as an Editor in 2018 for Speciality Medical Dialogues. She covers several medical specialties including Cardiac Sciences, Dentistry, Diabetes and Endo, Diagnostics, ENT, Gastroenterology, Neurosciences, and Radiology. She has completed her Bachelors in Biomedical Sciences from DU and then pursued Masters in Biotechnology from Amity University. She has a working experience of 5 years in the field of medical research writing, scientific writing, content writing, and content management. She can be contacted at editorial@medicaldialogues.in. Contact no. 011-43720751

Dr. Kamal Kant Kohli

Dr Kamal Kant Kohli-MBBS, DTCD- a chest specialist with more than 30 years of practice and a flair for writing clinical articles, Dr Kamal Kant Kohli joined Medical Dialogues as a Chief Editor of Medical News. Besides writing articles, as an editor, he proofreads and verifies all the medical content published on Medical Dialogues including those coming from journals, studies,medical conferences,guidelines etc. Email: drkohli@medicaldialogues.in. Contact no. 011-43720751