A Manchester expert has claimed that more research needs to be done into finding treatments for schizophrenia that don’t add to the likelihood of sufferers dying prematurely.
Mark Fenton, an editor at the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group comments come after a team of scientists led by Cardiff University researchers conducted the biggest study of its kind, to understand the causes of schizophrenia comparing over 11,000 patient’s genetic details with 16,416 people without the condition.
The results, published in the journal Neuron, show how disruption of a chemical balance in the brain is implicated in the disorder.
Around 635,000 people in the UK will at some stage in their lives be affected by schizophrenia.
The estimated cost of schizophrenia and psychosis to society is around £11.8 billion a year.
Mark said: “If this lab finding translates to a greater clinical understanding, with better treatments which don’t add to people with schizophrenia dying younger than people without schizophrenia, it will be a truly remarkable achievement to have found the cause, and contributed to developments of novel helpful treatments.
“However please don’t expect others to get excitable on the results of the same authors further finding results that they have found before.
“With a worldwide drugs bill of $400 million increasing to over $5 billion in the space of a decade, and it can be said all the ‘atypical’ drugs have done is make people fat, and give them diabetes, with no treatment gains over the old drugs, which gave them movement disorders and made their moods flat.”
A healthy brain is able to function properly thanks to a precise balance between chemical signals that excite and inhibit nerve cell activity.
Researchers studying psychiatric disorders have previously suspected that disruption of this balance contributes to schizophrenia.
The symptoms of schizophrenia can be extremely disruptive, and have a large impact on a person’s ability to carry out everyday tasks, such as going to work, maintaining relationships and caring for themselves or others.
A healthy brain is able to function properly thanks to a precise balance between chemical signals that excite and inhibit nerve cell activity.
Researchers studying psychiatric disorders have previously suspected that disruption of this balance contributes to schizophrenia.
The symptoms of schizophrenia can be extremely disruptive, and have a large impact on a person’s ability to carry out everyday tasks, such as going to work, maintaining relationships and caring for themselves or others.
Lead author Dr Andrew Pocklington from Cardiff University’s MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics, said: “We’re finally starting to understand what goes wrong in schizophrenia.
“Our study marks a significant step towards understanding the biology underpinning schizophrenia, which is an incredibly complex condition and has up until very recently kept scientists largely mystified as to its origins.
“A reliable model of disease is urgently needed to direct future efforts in developing new treatments, which haven’t really improved a great deal since the 1970s.”
The research in Cardiff was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme.
Image courtesy of Meg Wills, with thanks.
