Schizophrenia varies greatly by climate and latitude, season of birth, country vs. city, skin color, and other factors. For instance:
Not to keep you in suspense, but much evidence points to a deficiency of vitamin D as having a causal role in the development of schizophrenia. Here's the abstract to a recent review paper out of Harvard, Relation of Schizophrenia Prevalence to Latitude, Climate, Fish Consumption, Infant Mortality, and Skin Color: A Role for Prenatal Vitamin D Deficiency and Infections?
Previous surveys found a large (>10-fold) variation in schizophrenia prevalence at different geographic sites and a tendency for prevalence to increase with latitude. We conducted meta-analyses of prevalence studies to investigate whether these findings pointed to underlying etiologic factors in schizophrenia or were the result of methodological artifacts or the confounding of sites’ latitude with level of healthcare at those sites. We found that these patterns were still present after controlling for an index of healthcare—infant mortality—and focusing on 49 studies that used similar diagnostic and ascertainment methods. The tendencies for schizophrenia prevalence to increase with both latitude and colder climate were still large and significant and present on several continents. The increase in prevalence with latitude was greater for groups with low fish consumption, darker skin, and higher infant mortality—consistent with a role of prenatal vitamin D deficiency in schizophrenia. Previous research indicates that poor prenatal healthcare and nutrition increase risk for schizophrenia within the same region. These adverse conditions are more prevalent in developing countries concentrated near the equator, but schizophrenia prevalence is lowest at sites near the equator. This suggests that schizophrenia-producing environmental factors associated with higher latitude may be so powerful they overwhelm protective effects of better healthcare in industrialized countries. The observed patterns of correlations of risk factors with prevalence are consistent with an etiologic role for prenatal vitamin D deficiency and exposure to certain infectious diseases. Research to elucidate environmental factors that underlie variations in schizophrenia prevalence deserves high priority.
I've recently grown a little skeptical of the whole Vitamin D panacea idea. If one of the main ways that exercise improves health is via free radical generation, who is to say that it is ultraviolet light generating free radicals and not Vitamin D that is what is responsible for this stuff? IMO I haven't gotten much health benefit from high dosage Vitamin D, but I seem to feel great after going in the sun. If anyone has any proof that isolates the health benefits of Vitamin D from UV sun exposure, let me know.
ReplyDeleteSigh... Is there anything that vitamin D does not cure?
ReplyDeleteA brief look at the paper reveals that it is full of potential problems. The liberal use of regression lines is, frankly, beyond ridiculous (look for three pointers in case of Africa and N America with high infant mortality as the most egregious examples). But hey, there is a kernel of indisputable truth there: schizophrenia is reported more frequently in the first world countries. (And so are postpartum depression and Cotard delusion).
schizophrenia is reported more frequently in the first world countries
ReplyDeleteIssue that's addressed in the abstract, which you must not have read.
If anyone has any proof that isolates the health benefits of Vitamin D from UV sun exposure, let me know.
Gee, you could look it up. Such as the study that reduced cancer incidence by 80% through D supplementation. But I suppose "feeling great after going in the sun" is a much better guide.
Really, people.
Magnesium is, to use a simple metaphor, calcium's traffic cop. One's body needs a balance between the two. Their relationship is both antagonistic and complementary.
ReplyDeleteThe same is true for potassium and sodium.
The same is true for vitamin D and vitamin K. If you are going to supplement with vitamin D then you should consider supplementing with K as well. Not K1 which is mostly ineffective. Rather K2 as menaquinone or menatetrenone.
If you don't wish to supplement, then
apparently, Edam and Gouda cheese are good sources of vitamin K. As are some other cheeses.
Vitamin D is used in the laboratory to induce carotid artery stenosis in rats and in rabbits. True, humans are not rabbits but a sufficient intake of vitamin K can prevent arteriosclerosis. Here is an easy layman's language article on vitamin k, and please note the references at the bottom.
http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2000/feb00-report.html
here is another:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9414028
Here is one study of rabbits given vitamin D:
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/short/34/1/77
excerpt:
A total of 14 abnormalities of the aorta were noted in the 34 offspring whose [rabbit] mothers received vitamin D. Aortic lesions that appeared similar anatomically to supravalvar aortic stenosis in man were noted in six rabbits.
I just made a cursory search; the resourceful or enterprising reader can certainly obtain better articles or abstracts if they so wish.
There is also a significant correlation between latitude and brain size (see the reference below). Maybe that too is due to insufficient vitamin D.
ReplyDeleteLewis, J.E., D. DeGusta, M.R. Meyer, J.M. Monge, A.E. Mann, R.L. Holloway. (2011). The Mismeasure of Science: Stephen Jay Gould versus Samuel George Morton on Skulls and Bias, PLoS Biology, 9(6) e1001071
Interesting. I knew there were more black schizos, or at least diagnosed schizos, didn't know about the potential vitamin D link and skin color.
ReplyDeleteThis is another way race-denial gets people killed because shrinks don't like agreeing to lock up a disproportionate number of black schizos and that creates a gap between the number who are locked up and the number who should be and the ones in that gap stab people.
"These adverse conditions are more prevalent in developing countries concentrated near the equator, but schizophrenia prevalence is lowest at sites near the equator. "
ReplyDeleteIs it ?
Schizophrenia world map
This came today, Dr. John Cannell's email from the Vitamin D Council:
ReplyDelete"Vitamin D Council
Press Release
June 30, 2011
Diabetes
We are all waiting for the 900 or so randomized controlled trials that scientists are conducting using vitamin D. This morning, researchers working at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, under the direction of Professor Anastassios Pittas, published just such a randomized controlled trial in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Their research group reported that 2,000 IU/day of vitamin D, given for 12 weeks, significantly improved pancreatic function in mildly overweight adults with pre-diabetes. Unfortunately, the lead author, Dr. Joanna Mitri, did not comment on the low dose of vitamin D they used, 2,000 IU/day, which only increased vitamin D levels from 24 to 30 ng/ml. Nor, in spite of it being a randomized controlled trial, did the authors make any new clinical recommendations for the people who paid for their study, the citizens of the United States.
In spite of the low dose and short length of their study, they found their principal outcome, a measurement of pancreatic function, increased by 300 in the vitamin D group but fell by 126 in the placebo group. I cannot link the study to PubMed as it is not yet listed there; it will be in a few days.
Joanna Mitri, Bess Dawson-Hughes, Frank B Hu, and Anastassios G Pittas. Effects of vitamin D and calcium supplementation on pancreatic b cell function, insulin sensitivity, and glycemia in adults at high risk of diabetes: the Calcium and Vitamin D for Diabetes Mellitus (CaDDM) randomized controlled trial. AJCN. First published ahead of print June 29, 2011 as doi: 10.3945/ajcn.111.011684.
In the end, they studied 22 volunteers in the vitamin D group and 22 in the placebo group. However, to give you an idea of what a feat this study was, how difficult it was to get enough subjects, they started with 911 subjects yet ended up randomizing only 44 into the vitamin D study. They did a parallel calcium study with 45 subjects, which found calcium had no benefit on pancreatic function.
The same senior author, Professor Anastassios Pittas, recently announced the results of a much larger epidemiological study that showed for every 5 ng/mL increase in vitamin D levels, the risk of developing diabetes dropped by 8%. However, he was quick to warn that such epidemiological studies should not change clinical recommendations, only randomized controlled trials can do that. Then, when he oversees just such a randomized trial, not a word of clinical advice, only the ever-present request for more research money from the citizens of this country.
http://diabetes.webmd.com/news/20110628/study-vitamin-d-may-cut-risk-of-diabetes
Of course the Food and Nutrition Board will say they never said levels greater than 20 ng/ml had no added benefits, only that no good evidence existed for such a benefit at the time they issued their report. Actually, if you exclude the science of epidemiology, that is still a false statement. The point is that history will record that someone was wrong. Maybe it will be me and the Vitamin D Council’s recommendation, going into its fifth year, that adults should take at least 5,000 IU per day. Or maybe it will be Professor A. Catharine Ross, of Pennsylvania State University, the chairwoman of the recent FNB that concluded 600 IU/day is the Recommended Daily Allowance, all adults need. Looking at the study published today, it is clear that 600 IU/day would not have resulted in a significant improvement in pancreatic function.
I predict that after most of the randomized controlled trials are out – in another ten years – the FNB will meet again and say “whoops,” it should have been 5,000 IU/day all along. However, by then the premature death count will be in the millions.
John Cannell, MD
Vitamin D Council"
The vitamin D receptor genotype predisposes to the development of calcific aortic valve stenosis: (in humans)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1729753/pdf/v085p00638.pdf
[….] a combination of high cholesterol with vitamin D supplementation was necessary to induce valve stenosis [….]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18751467
In this experimental study, 15 male rabbits were fed a cholesterol-enriched diet and vitamin D2 until significant aortic-valve stenosis was detected by echocardiography.
http://www.theheart.org/article/859775.do
But, vitamins K & D can work together to reverse aortic valve stenosis:
http://www.trackyourplaque.com/blog/2011/02/the-formula-for-aortic-valve-disease.html
Can aortic valve stenosis be stopped or reversed using a regimen of nutritional supplements?
I had a striking experience this past week. Don has coronary plaque and began the Track Your Plaque program. However, discovery of a murmur led to an echocardiogram that measured his effective aortic valve area at 1.5 cm2. (Normal is between 2.5-3.0 cm2.)
Because of his aortic valve issue, I suggested that, in addition to the 10,000 units of vitamin D required to increase his 25-hydroxy vitamin D level to 70 ng/ml, he also add vitamin K2, 1000 mcg per day, along with elimination of all calcium supplements. (I asked Don to use a K2 supplement that contained both forms, short-acting MK-4 and long-acting MK-7.)
One year later, another echocardiogram: aortic valve area 2.6 cm2–an incredible increase.
This is not supposed to happen. By conventional thinking, aortic valve stenosis can only get worse, never get better.
Ha, haw, ho (I never LOL)...this is as obvious as Barbara Streisand's nose. The Tribe, notorious for schizophrenia and other genetic mental conundrums, is overwhelmingly urban, under-respresented on the land. Thus the correlation. Vitamin D? Vitamin J.
ReplyDeleteAnd Loughner, also of the Tribe...just got away with 6 murders upon a diagnosis of "schizophrenia". Now he can sit in a comfortable bin for a few, laugh behind his hand, then walk. How unfortunate that someone didn't turn him on to Vitamin D back when.
ReplyDeleteIt might be caused by a virus or some other pathogen.
ReplyDeleteGreg Cochran and Paul Ewald have written a paper on the possible infectious causation of schizophrenia:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12878806&dopt=AbstractPlus
Urban areas have more pathogens than rural areas so this would fit with higher urban rates of schizophrenia.
Walter Willett, chair of the Department of Nutrition at HSPH has been a prominent national critic of the IOM report, calling its recommendations of vitamin D too low.
ReplyDeleteDiscussion of D at Harvard "Vitamin D blood levels of 30 or more are not reliably safe and would be inappropriate for a broad public health recommendation, said panelist Patsy Brannon, a Cornell University nutritionist and IOM committee member who joined the conversation on a video uplink."
The IOM that is that bunch of experts who made their recommendations after looking at a mere 1000 scientific papers.
Cannell's 'Friends for Education also filed sexual discrimination complaints against the West Virginia State Department of Education, claiming women held 80% of the low paying teaching jobs, but men held 80% of the higher paying administrative positions. They had filed similar complaints in Raleigh County just 18 months earlier.'
If ingesting 600IU a day puts your blood vitamin D to 20 ng/ml why is it necessary to ingest ten times more to double the blood level to 40ng/ml eh?" Does that dose response suggest that the whites have evolved to maximize vitamin D absorption? In The Pharmacology of Vitamin D Vieth himself remarks on the way humans handle vitamin D calling it "a system better designed to cope with an abundance of supply, not a lack of it" - "remarkably inefficient" -"no way to correct for deficiency".
Just to be clear here is a longer except""If one looks at the system of vitamin D metabolism in Figure 2 from the perspective of a system designed to control something, it becomes clear that this is a system better designed to cope with an abundance of supply, not a lack of it. The flow of vitamin D toward 25(OH)D is remarkably inefficient, with most bypassing it. Furthermore, there is no way to correct for deficiency of vitamin D, other than to redirect utilization of 25(OH)D toward 1,25(OH)2D production, which is the pathway most acutely important for life. That is, when supplies of vitamin D are severely restricted, its metabolism is directed only toward the maintenance of calcium homeostasis. To expand on the point that the system of vitamin D metabolism is effectively a designed for adjusting for higher inputs, not lower inputs, I offer the example of an air-conditioner system. Air conditioners are designed to compensate for excessive heat, but they are a useless way to compensate for a cold environment."
Every tiny advantage counts in evolution and you cannot say that a maladaptive system being left alone is not an anomaly; those who carried it would have died out and been totally replaced in the 1,000 generations that have passed since modern humans entered Europe.
ReplyDeleteIs a person wearing clothes able to get plenty of vitamin D from the sun in northern Europe ? Interdependence between body surface area and ultraviolet B dose in vitamin D production: a randomized controlled trial. "Notably, a very small UVB dose of 0·75 SED (∼8 min of sun exposure on a clear day around the summer solstice in Denmark, 56°N) and a small body surface area of 12% resulted in significant 25(OH)D production."
The value of melanin as a sunscreen " Here we find that epidermal melanin is not a neutral density filter providing no or minimal protection for the induction of erythema at 295 and 315 nm and some protection at 305 and 365 nm." (ie many wavelengths which cause synthesis of vitamin D are NOT blocked by melanin)
Saints, scholars, and schizophrenics: mental illness in rural Ireland By Nancy Scheper-Hughes; as the link shows schizophrenia was about 3 times more common in Eire than in England. Ireland is very rural country.
Vitamin D can be dome without,how about the Naked Mole-Rat: A New Long-Living Model for Human Aging Research. I think it's important to grasp that the UV-B which strikes the average person in northern regions like Canada or Europe is NOT a bare minimum, actually it would synthesize far too much vitamin D - hundreds of thousands of IU per day in the summer if there was no limiting mechanism. There are several mechanisms to limit vitamin D synthesis which modern Europeans have retained. There is the switch off in skin synthesis after 10-20 minutes (or 1 minute in some circumstances Vitamin D production depends on ultraviolet-B dose but not on dose rate: a randomized controlled trial.); there is the system of vitamin D metabolism which even Vieth 99 calls 'a system better designed to cope with an abundance of supply, not a lack of it"; there are also alleles which reduce the effectiveness of the vitamin-D binding protein, and their homozygotes account for 9% and 18% of the subjects in Sinotte et al., 2009. So the idea that UV-B exposure is directly proportional to vitamin D synthesis and/or vitamin D levels is wrong. The only evidence that vitamin D has been in short supply for humans in temperate latitudes is that in Europeans skin turned white, but the simple latitude /UV hypothesis is not supported by the date for skin lightening mutations. European Skin Turned Pale Only Recently, Gene Suggests
Tod: You should start your own anti-vitamin D blog.
ReplyDeleteEven assuming the information at all of your links is 100% correct, the fact is that humans have moved indoors on a massive scale over the past 100 years or so. Around 1800, 90% of Europeans and North Americans were farmers, so they may very well have gotten plenty of vitamin D. Now under 5% are farmers, and even they probably spend a great deal of time indoors.
Your notion that vitamin D production in northern latitudes is significant certainly goes against everything I've read. North of Boston between November and March there's not enough solar radiation to produce much vitamin D, plus people are heavily clothed and indoors most of that time.
But go ahead and carry on your campaign, I'll continue to get plenty of sun and take D supplements when appropriate, like in winter.
"90% of Europeans and North Americans were farmers"
ReplyDeleteI don't doubt that a limited amount of exposure to sun is beneficial and has psychological benefits.
However Peter Frost actually interviewed old time Canadian farmers (these people were in their eighties) and until sunbathing was popularized in the twenties they had traditionally worked covered up. Taking that 'sun protection factor' thing into account I imagine the light cotton clothing would make their 8 hours in the sun equivalent to about half an hour or so.
Comment from Kurt G. Harris MD "Last winter 2009-2010 was the only winter I ever supplemented with D3 - at about 4000 iu/day up to about 65 ng/dl.
Last winter I got the worst virus I ever had and was sick with cough and bronchospasm for weeks afterward. Most winters I catch nothing or get it very mild if at all.
I stopped supplementing with D in march 2010. I do get 20 minute of sun from march through september, but I let my D levels fall naturally the way I have for the past 5 years or so. This winter - 2010-2011 - my wife, who still supplements at 2-4000/day, caught a nasty URI that put her in bed for 4 days. I slept with her and did not get sick at all.
Overall I was definitely more virus prone and sicker when I supplemented to a level of 60-70 ng. dl over a year and a half period - during the winters. I've heard enough anecdotal evidence from others to think heavy supplementation may relate to this.
I now think it is perfectly natural to have seasonal variation in 25 D levels and there is evidence that white people get higher levels in the summer to buffer the drop that occurs in winter. I think oral D3 is artificial and only benefits those on a mineral depleting cereal based diet - that's not me.
So I now get sunlight to less than the MED when I can get it, but I think D3 supplements are for people in nursing homes or solitary confinement."
Let me admit that I too used to be a believer in supplements, I took a LOT.
Crime triggering Incest in Jamaica
ReplyDeletehttp://www.socawarriors.net/forum/index.php?topic=37905.0
More Jamaicans demand mental health care
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20010617/arts/arts2.html
ScienceDaily had this on Mar. 5, 2010
ReplyDeleteLink Between Vitamin D and Basal Cell Carcinoma Probed: Study Sheds Light On Development of Most Common Form of Skin Cancer
"In a small study, researchers at Henry Ford and Wayne State University found elevated levels of Vitamin D enzymes and proteins in cancerous tissue taken from 10 patients compared to normal skin tissue taken from them. [...]"
Now ScienceDaily reports (Aug. 16, 2011)
Vitamin D Levels Appear to Be Associated With Risk of Skin Cancer, Although Relationship Is Complex
"As an individual's level of vitamin D increases, the risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC) seems to increase as well[...] a study among 3,223 white members of a health maintenance organization (HMO) who had a high probability of developing NMSC. . Individuals who were not deficient in vitamin D appeared to have an increased risk of developing nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC), even when researchers considered other risk factors."