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The well-known high prevalence of metabolic syndrome and diabetes in schizophrenia is usually attributed to a combination of poor diet, inactivity, and adverse medication effects. This international study addressed an additional, genetic component to this common comorbidity.
The researchers used blood samples from 420 Danish schizophrenia patients and two healthy controls for each patient matched for age, sex, and year and month of birth (discovery sample) to examine prevalence of 11 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that were previously associated with type 2 diabetes. The researchers identified an allele of TCF7L2 as having a greater prevalence in schizophrenia patients than in controls. This statistically significant association betw…