Schizophrenia is 2nd highest risk factor for dying of COVID-19, after age

[Beringia]

https://www.livescience.com/schizophrenia-covid-19-death-risk-factor.html

EXCERPTS

The researchers did not find an association between anxiety or mood disorders and death from COVID-19. But they found that people with schizophrenia were about 2.7 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than people without that mental disorder — the second-highest risk factor after age.

"It seemed as though there's something about either the illness of schizophrenia or possibly medications that causes them to be at really high risk of mortality," Goff told Live Science. For example, perhaps the illness or medications are disrupting the immune system, he said. Previous research has found that people with schizophrenia can have altered immune responses and variations in the genes that regulate the body's immune response to infections.

"This is a highly interesting study, especially with regard to the role of the immune system," said Dr. Norbert Müller, a professor of psychiatry at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany,who was not involved with the study. Some psychiatrists speculate that schizophrenia is associated with the activation of the immune system and pro-inflammatory signalling molecules known as cytokines, he said. A common cause of COVID-19 death is an overreaction of those cytokines, also known as a cytokine storm.

"Such a mechanism could also play a role in schizophrenia and be a common pathway of schizophrenia and fatal course in COVID-19," Müller told Live Science. But the genes that instruct and regulate the immune response could also play a role, he added. Still, the study was limited by the low number of schizophrenia patients, he said, and also by the lack of data on patients' psychosis medications (which the authors also mention).

[janterry]

1. High correlation between Vitamin D deficiency and schizophrenia

so, that too.

[Beringia]

2. Thanks, I didn't hear that one yet

[Squinch]

3. Interesting. This is such a mystery. Pointing to some mechanism we really don't understand.

[Chakaconcarne]

13. Vitamin D deficiency and risk for Covid is inconclusive at this point

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2775003

But maintaining Vit D levels is all around a good idea.

[janterry]

17. true, it's all hypothesis

I'm following the science pretty carefully

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. I thought obesity was way up there.

Early on a LOT of health care providers commented on that. And I've noticed that when I see pictures of younger people who have died from it, invariably they do not look at all thin.

[Midnight Writer]

18. I've got a friend on meds for schizophrenia, and his main complaint is it causes weight gain.

He went from being a tall, slender fellow to being obese.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. I am sorry to learn that.

I know there are other meds that cause weight gain also, but I'm referring to young people who died and supposedly had no co-morbidities or underlying health issues. Other than clearly being overweight.

[IndyOp]

5. People with Sx should be at the top of the monoclonal antibody treatment lists, then. (n/t)

[Zorro]

6. I've been seeing drug ads for schizophrenia recently on tv

I found that curious. I guess it is more pervasive in today's society than I thought.

[Zorro]

8. I believe the ads were on MSNBC

so don't think it was something in my search history that triggered them.

[LiberalArkie]

9. Years ago I ran across 2 studies on 2 different web sites that I almost clicked through

1 had a correlation of Vitaimin D and sunscreen, naturally not as much Vitamin D made when using sunscreen and the other was the increase of the sales of Prozac and I guess other anti-depressants vs Vitamin D in the body.

I guess it makes sense at least to me, as the sales of Sunscreen went up so did the sales of Prozac.

My read on it is that Vitamin D must be a powerful chemical in our bodies.

[Chakaconcarne]

10. Schizophrenics tend to have higher levels of cholesterol.....

as do the elderly. The belief is that high cholesterol provides a nice little pathway for Covid into cell membranes. High Cholesterol is a risk factor for covid-related death.

They have been looking at the effect of statins (cholesterol lowering drugs) on the reduction of cholesterol at cell membranes and in turn the viral load of COVID, inflammation and recovery times. They are still trying to establish as solid connection, but the thought at this point is that statins should not be discontinued in COVID + patients.

I find it all very interesting, because the high cholesterol American diet could correlate with our high rate of mortality compared to other countries... Furthermore is there a range or threshold of HDL levels that determine the degree of infection, symptoms, etc...

It will be interesting to see what comes of this if you think about how a big chunk of American Capitalism is built off High Cholesterol foods.

[Beringia]

12. Fatty foods and COVID, yikes. Thanks for the info

[Chakaconcarne]

15. Well, intake of fatty foods that lead to chronically high levels of HDL Cholesterol.

and it sounds like statins used to control/lower cholesterol might help these individuals. Many Americans have uncontrolled cholesterol.

Side note: It's not necessarily inherent to the schizophrenia/psychosis disease, but primarily the use of Antipsychotic medications which are notorious for elevating cholesterol (and causing weight gain). It's a constant balance between achieving the drug/blood levels needed to moderate the disease (which can be very high and can include a cocktail of different medications and doses) and the trade off with elevated cholesterol.

[Beringia]

16. Thanks

[Hestia]

14. Read a couple of interesting articles re: 1918 Flu, Schizophrenia and Vitamin D

1. If you are over 50, it is extremely difficult for your body to absorb Vitamin D from sunlight. That is when you need to take supplements. Ask your doctor to do Vitamin D levels when you reach that age.

2. 1918 Flu - in order to do research, doctors from that time (years ago) were asked what they saw and were asked for medical records from that time period of their patients. It seems that families that had no mental health problems or schizophrenia pre-flu, the children were born with mental health & schizophrenia diagnosis'. Tangential I know, but it is the only records researchers have at this time, no data was really "crunched" until the last 50 years regarding families & mental health.

I hope that the research is ongoing, especially with COVID patients.