Posted by Hugh on November 9, 2017, at 16:17:05
In reply to Schizophrenia, posted by sigismund on November 3, 2017, at 12:12:04
In an update to a recent study, researchers say they are continuing to find evidence that women who take supplements containing choline when they're pregnant may lower the risk of schizophrenia in their children.
The children in the study are now 4 years old, and are already showing fewer early signs of schizophrenia -- such as certain attention and social problems -- than expected, said Dr. Robert Freedman at a talk in New York City on Oct. 23. Half of the children in the study had an increased risk for schizophrenia because their mothers had depression, anxiety or psychosis.
Freedman, the chairman of the department of psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and editor in chief of The American Journal of Psychiatry, gave attendees at the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation symposium an update on the participants in his study, which was originally published in 2013 in The American Journal of Psychiatry.
In the 2013 study, Freedman and his team looked at the brains of the babies when they were newborns. They found that those whose mothers took a supplement containing phosphatidylcholine (a version of the nutrient choline) during the second or third trimester of pregnancy showed improvements in how well nerve cells could block certain signals, compared to a group whose moms were given a placebo. In people with schizophrenia, this ability to block these signals does not fully develop.
This means that people with schizophrenia are unable to block out certain sensory signals, making it difficult to focus their attention, Freedman said at the research meeting last month.
Complete article:
https://www.livescience.com/52674-prenatal-choline-schizophrenia-risk.html
Dr. Robert Freedman's talk on preventing schizophrenia:
poster:Hugh
thread:1095713
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20161215/msgs/1095791.html