Study Shows Link Between Retrovirus and Schizophrenia

New Study Shows Link Between Retrovirus and Schizophrenia

A study released April 10, 2001, provides compelling evidence that there is a link between schizophrenia and a virus from the family HERV-W. This is a virus that is present in the environment and is often found in a person’s DNA. We all carry these retroviral genes, but they are usually inactive and don’t cause problems. In the study conducted by Dr. David Yolken of Johns Hopkins University and scientists at the University of Heidelberg, traces of the active form of the virus where found in 10 out of 35 patients recently diagnosed with acute schizophrenia. A control group of people without schizophrenia showed no trace of these genes.

"We don't know the activated retrovirus is a trigger [for schizophrenia] because we'd have to look to see people before they got sick and compare, but it's the closest to a trigger that's out there so far," says Dr. Robert Yolken, author of the study.

While 29 percent of those with acute schizophrenia showed the most evidence of the activated retrovirus, just 7 percent of those with chronic schizophrenia showed signs of the activated retrovirus. "We think that there are the most activations [of the retrovirus] in the early part of the disease. As the disease goes on, it becomes less active," he says.

The retrovirus Yolken and his colleagues studied is called "endogenous retrovirus," and worked its way into the human genetic code millions of years ago, he says. It is not an infectious virus like those familiar to most people, such as the flu virus.

While he doesn't know what activates the retrovirus, Yolken says, "We think it may be triggered by other infectious viruses, the herpes virus being our number one choice."

Steven Specter, a microbiology professor from the University of South Florida, says that while the new study's findings are important, there could be other reasons for the differences in the cerebrospinal fluids of those with schizophrenia, compared with those without the disease.

"[The research] is important enough to take a serious look at ... but it's very hard to say what it means," he says.

Yolken, whose work focuses on how mental disorders may be caused by germs, genetics or environmental triggers, will continue to study what might be causing the activation of the retrovirus.

"We'd like to focus on identifying the risk beforehand," he says. "If we could alter the rate of infection by other viruses, we could alter the rate of the expression of the retrovirus -- that's the direction we're going in."

Results of the study appear in the April 10, 2001 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and additional information is available from the following news articles:

Click here for article in The Times April 10, 2001

Click here for article in Health Scout

Click here for original article in Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 98, Issue 8, 4634-4639, April 10, 2001

Schizophrenia Risk and Father's Age

In a separate article, a study conducted by Dolores Malaspina, MD, a research psychiatrist at New York State Psychiatric Institute and associate professor at Columbia University, shows a link between father's age and the child's risk of developing schizophrenia. The study, published in the April issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, indicates that if the father is over the age of 40 at the time of conception it doubles the child's risk of developing schizophrenia. Dr. Malaspina told WebMD, "Father's age is certainly as important and may be even more important than mother's age in terms of schizophrenia risk and in terms of many birth defects as well. For the last 20 years, it's been quite clear that fathers above age 40 have at least a one in 200 incidence of new genetic diseases in their children."

Click here for more detail from Living with Schizophrenia.

Study: Older Men Risk Having Schizophrenic Kids
Reuters Health News September 6, 2002

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish scientists have found that older men face a much greater risk of fathering schizophrenic children than younger men.

Schizophrenia is a widespread and debilitating form of mental disease with symptoms ranging from delusions and an altered sense of self to apathy and social withdrawal.

Scientists at Sweden's Karolinska Institute found that children fathered by men aged 45 or older were three times as likely to develop schizophrenia as offspring of men aged 20-24.

"We already knew there was an increased risk when older women have children," Christina Dahlman, the physician who led the study, told Reuters Friday.

"When I looked closer at the men I noticed that many children with schizophrenia had old fathers."

The findings, released this week, support earlier studies by Israeli and American scientists.

As in many Western countries, couples in Sweden are delaying having their first child. In the past three decades, the average age of a first-time mother has risen five years to 28.5 years.

Dahlman and colleague Peter Allebeck studied 524 schizophrenics for more than seven years and found that being fathered by an older man doubled the risk of developing the disease.

As most older men tended to have older wives, the cumulative risk was three times greater.

The reasons for the link were unclear, but Dahlman said sperm cell mutations, which increase with a man's age, have been known to cause various other diseases.

Children of older men may also lose their fathers at an early age, possibly increasing the risk of schizophrenia.

Around 24 million people worldwide suffer from schizophrenia, according to the World Health Organization ( news - web sites). Symptoms can be treated but there is no cure.

Source:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=585&u=/nm/20020906/sc_nm/health_sweden_schizophrenia_dc&printer=1

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Last Updated on 07/05/03 webmaster@namiscc.org

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