Schizophrenia itself can lead to obesity, study suggests
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
