5 ms·
We're still talking about awfully low levels. Schizophrenia is a rare condition, and doubling your chances of getting a rare condition still leaves it as a rare
by hugh3 16y ago
We're still talking about awfully low levels. Schizophrenia is a rare condition, and doubling your chances of getting a rare condition still leaves it as a rare condition. When a risk factor for a rare disease merely increases the risk by a factor of two it's usually not worth worrying too much about, and it'll probably remain too difficult to sort out the cause-and-effect.
And yet, I can guarantee that many people reading this article will immediately take it to heart that "not getting enough sun during pregnancy causes schizophrenia" and make it a part of their personal belief structure. Perhaps the worst effects will be on the mother of schizophrenics, who having just got over the Freudian hangover in which all mental illnesses are blamed on the failings of the parents, will now be able to blame themselves for wearing too much sunscreen during pregnancy.
- carbocation 16y agoI agree. There will be plenty of victim-blaming going on here if people read too much into the epidemiology. Thinking about the implications of your comment for my suggestion of a clinical trial, I realized the following: powering a clinical trial to detect any change in the incidence of such a rare disorder is going to require tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of participants. This sounds absurd but may actually be possible, given how much interest there is in vitamin D lately (faddist, IMHO, but whatever). Possible because (1) social interest; (2) vitamin D is cheap; (3) vitamin D is likely relatively safe at typical doses.
- hugh3 16y agoAren't you overlooking the really big problem that such a study would have to last all the way from pre-birth to adulthood in order to pick up this effect?
- carbocation 16y agoI actually think that this is happening in some Scandinavian country (literally from birth). Apologies that I can't find the link, and I encourage you not to believe me until I can.
- car 16y agoSchizophrenia is a rare condition Schizophrenia is actually a common disease, affecting ~1% of the world population, regardless of ethnicity.
- hugh3 16y agoSounds about right. I suppose that makes it a relatively common condition, then.
- car 16y agoIt very sadly is. Many homeless people are among the affected.
- carbocation 16y agoWhat you say is in agreement with the common wisdom. However, I'll offer two caveats: It may be no more than a myth that schizophrenia affects all ethnicities equally, according to a review of the data: http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/content/32/1/195.full http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/content/32/1... According to a systematic review, it appears that ~0.4% of the world population is affected (lifetime prevalence), not 1%: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1140960/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1140960/ At any rate, I don't disagree with your general points, I just thought you might be interested in the above refinements.
- car 16y agoThank you for making this more specific. I checked on Wikipedia after my comment, and found what you cite. So common wisdom needs to adapt.