By Dr Ananya Mandal, MD
Researchers at Queensland Brain Institute have found that babies born with low vitamin D levels are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia later in life. This could mean that it may be possible to prevent schizophrenia, which affects almost 200,000 Australians.
According to Professor John McGrath from the Queensland Brain Institute there has been suggestions for some time that there may be a link between sunlight, vitamin D and brain development. He explained, “For the babies who had very low vitamin D, their risk was about twice as high as those babies who had optimal vitamin D…But the amazing thing was that the study that was based in Denmark, where low vitamin D is quite common, we found that if vitamin D is linked to schizophrenia our statistics suggest that it could explain about 40% of all schizophrenias…That's a much bigger effect than we're used to seeing in schizophrenia research.”
A little more time in sunlight could gather enough vitamin D for children. It however remains unclear whether there are fewer cases of schizophrenia in a country like Australia which sees a lot more sunlight. “We don't have high-quality data on that, but some statistics suggest we do have slightly lower incidences and prevalence of schizophrenia…Like many other diseases, like multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia tends to be more common in places further away from the equator…And if you're born in winter and spring you tend to have a slightly increased risk of schizophrenia also, and that was one of the original pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that led us to wonder maybe vitamin D could be implicated,” said Professor McGrath.
Professor Ian Hickie from the Brain and Mind Research Institute in Sydney is not surprised with these findings but he said more research is necessary. He said, “So the real acid test is going to be trying to lift vitamin D levels in pregnant women and newborns and see whether there's an effect on later schizophrenia…Or even in fact, looking at providing higher levels of vitamin D by vitamin D supplementation in other ways later in life and particularly childhood and the teenage years, to see whether you might reduce the risk of onset of schizophrenia.”