Accounting for the High Rates of Diabetes in Schizophrenia

Patients with schizophrenia and other psychoses are prone to diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM). Two hypotheses for the high rates of DM are that these patients have greater initial risks for insulin resistance and weight gain and that antipsychotic and thymoleptic medications promote the metabolic syndrome. Two recent studies shed additional light.

To investigate whether individuals with a familial risk for psychosis are independently prone to DM, investigators used data from a Finnish cohort born in 1986. Of 6780 nondiabetic participants assessed at age 15 or 16, 104 had a familial risk for psychosis. The familial-risk and no–familial-risk groups had similar mean glucose, insulin, and lipid levels; insulin resistance; and waist circumference. U…