Possible schizophrenia link

[Treecreeper]

A lady of my acquaintance has a son, aged around 45-50, who has been institutionalised for many years with schizophrenia. He has also been Type 1 diabetic since his teens. The diabetes came first and was controlled with animal insulin. Then he was switched to human analogue insulin and he quickly went from normal to schizophrenic. She suspects the two circumstances are connected and asked me to see what I could find. Answer was, not much. But I did spot this bit of research from 2010:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 182645.htm

The research makes a link between schizophrenia and impaired insulin function. Insulin (this was new to me) has a role in regulating neurotransmitters in the brain, and the researchers showed by experiments on mice, and biochemical studies, that if insulin is not fulfilling its signalling role correctly the intersynaptic concentration of dopamine is reduced, resulting in mental disorders including schizophrenia.

The research says nothing about human analogue insulin. But thinking about it, if problems with natural insulin function might (in theory) precipitate schizophrenia, is it not feasible that un-natural insulin could have a similar, maybe even more pronounced, adverse effect?

I had my six-monthly check at the hospital this afternoon so I asked the consultant if he had ever come across such a suggestion. He is a professor so would certainly know, and he gave a straight no. That's probably the end of the matter but before putting it to bed I thought I'd ask for comments. Maybe someone knows of a similar case.

The lady in question, by the way, has finally persuaded the doctors to put her son back onto animal insulin, after many years of cajoling. It will be interesting to see how the change affects his condition.

 

[M.S.]

I know that it passed much time from the moment this topic was created, but maybe my comment is still useful. So I know one person, who is a relative of my friend, diagnosed with shizophrenia. Earlier, he had quite severe symptoms like delusions and hallucinations as described in this article. I know that nowadays there're prescribed many medications by his doctor for him to alliviate his symptoms. He didn't have any signs of diabet, but I came across this topic a few days ago, so I was wonder whether diabet indeed may influence on aggravation of schizophrenia. Thus, two days ago I visited this diseased person when his doctor came to see him and asked the doctor the same question as you did. He gave me almost the same answer - there're no connection between schizophrenia and diabet. These are separate diseases that don't influence on each other.

 

[catherinecherub]

There may be a connection between Schizophrenia and Type 2.

Dangerous liaisons. The relationship between schizophrenia and diabetes.

http://www.thejournalofdiabetesnursing.co.uk/media/content/_master/3226/files/pdf/jdn17-3-104-11.pdf

 

[RuthW]

OK. Don't shoot the messenger, but there is a very strong relationship between psychotic disorders and both types/all types of diabetes. If a woman has any type of diabetes while pregnant it is far more likely that her child/children will have a psychotic disorder when they are adults. It is still not a very high chance, but it is higher than the non-.diabetic population. But there is no actual evidence that her control during pregnancy is the cause. There is evidence that psychotic disorders (on the schizophrenia and bipolar continuum) are in the autoimmune "family" and so there is some genetic "crossover". It is a bit difficult to explain (especially because people are not going to want to know this) but basically to have most autoimmune disorders you need damage to quite a few genes (there isn't ONE damaged gene for diabets, and ONE damaged gene for schizophrenia, etc). Some of the damaged genes are the same. So some diabetics also show signs of schizophrenia and most schizophrenics end up with Type 2 as they get older. Until recently that was attributed to the medication, but lately they have started to find that "drug naive" schizophrenics also get Type 2. I know all this because unfortunately about two years ago, after ten years of slow decline my twenty-six-year-old son had his first psychotic episode (in fact it was his second - the first was about five years earlier but was so mild, we just shrugged and ignored it). When he was diagnosed I spent weeks researching it. To be honest I don't feel like recapping all my research, providing links, etc. I read all the original research papers I could find.

In my family in particular we have a whole raft of people with autoimmune disorders. Pernicious anemia, Type 1, Type 2, symptoms of lupus, hypothyroidism frozen shoulder, etc, etc and actually even evidence that people earlier in the family had psychotic disorders - but very mild and manageable. In fact, fortunately, my son's case is quite mild. He has responded to meds, has never been hospitalized and leads a fairly normal life - suffers mostly from depression.

But yes, it's an immune disorder. And no, it is not caused by insulin or change I insulin. It is basically an autoimmune attack on the brain. If you don't take the medication, it is progressive.

And my endo didn't say there's no connection. He said there is a connection, but it's not that MY diabetes is the cause of my son's psychosis. It's that we both inherited a dodgy set of genes, with a slightly different lay out. And we both seem to have had a "viral trigger". Luck of the draw. Or not.