Schizophrenics Studied for Diabetes Risks

(August 21, 2006) -- A U.S.-led study is attempting to determine if there is a link between schizophrenia and an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

The researchers are looking at newly diagnosed schizophrenics in an upper-middle-class Spanish community to find whether the disease that causes patients to hear voices and smell, feel and even taste unreal objects also increases their risk of diabetes.

Scientists know the drugs that best control the psychosis also increase the risk.

"We know it's the medicine; I'm asking whether it's the disease as well," said Dr. Brian Kirkpatrick, vice chairman of the Medical College of Georgia's Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior in Augusta, Ga., and principal investigator on the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases-funded study.

Kirkpatrick and colleagues at the University of Barcelona in Spain and the University of Maryland believe development changes during the second or early third trimester of pregnancy may cause schizophrenia and related problems.

"We want to better understand the totality of schizophrenia and we want to increase the risk-benefit ratio of treatment," says Kirkpatrick.

Source: UPI

Last updated: 8/06

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