A new study is pointing to a surprising trend concerning one of the most devastating and misunderstood of mental illnesses, suggesting Canada is a growing hotbed for schizophrenia.
Rates of the mental illness are climbing in this country and are already significantly higher than the average for the rest of the world, concludes the research.
Possible explanations for the apparent phenomenon are equally unusual.
One theory is that the condition is linked to vitamin-D deficiency, common in sun-deprived northern latitudes. A large population of immigrants — whose stressful, newcomer status has also been associated with increased risks for schizophrenia — are another potential cause, said Marie-José Dealberto, a Queen’s University psychiatrist and the author of the new study.
She noted the disorder usually strikes when people are teenagers or young adults and the impact on them “is enormous.”
“These results give much concern due to the serious personal, social and financial burden of schizophrenia,” warns her study in the journal Psychiatry Research, touted as the first analysis of its kind.
Other researchers, though, say the findings are intriguing but not entirely convincing, arguing the data behind the study are far from definitive.
Schizophrenia is a biochemical disorder that interferes with the sufferer’s connection to reality, causing delusions, hallucinations and social withdrawal.
There are, in fact, no conclusive national statistics on the prevalence of schizophrenia in Canada.
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Dr. Dealberto’s study analyzed a series of smaller studies, most looking at individual provinces, to come up with average rates of the disease.
Then she compared them to international data, subtracting the Canadian statistics from those world studies.
She concluded that 3.86 of every 1,000 Canadians — about 115,000 people — suffer from schizophrenia, well above the outside-Canada rate of 2.55.
Every year, Canada sees about 25.9 new schizophrenia cases per 100,000 people, more than double the 11.8 out of 100,000 rate in the rest of the world, the paper suggests.
Her analysis of 12 studies over the last 30 years or so also indicated a gradual increase in rates.
The small number of Canadian studies considered in the review and the quality of the data in that research, however, call into question the conclusions, said Dr. Taryn Tang, research head at the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario.
“It’s an interesting study. It’s an area that brings up a lot of questions,” she said. “[But] I think we need to be cautious.”
Dr. Kwame McKenzie, a schizophrenia expert at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, raised similar questions, saying he was not “100% convinced” by the research.
‘I fully believed I was a prophet, I fully believed I was communicating with God. At one point, I actually believed I was Jesus Christ’The suggestion that there is more schizophrenia the further north one goes in the world, and that lack of vitamin D is to blame, is an interesting idea, but has little solid proof behind it yet, he said.
However, there is strong evidence suggesting that someone who emigrates to another country is at much greater risk of succumbing to schizophrenia — likely because of the interplay between outside forces and brain chemistry that are now believed to be key in the illness, said Dr. McKenzie.
Research also indicates that people subject to racism and other forms of discrimination, and those undergoing major life changes and otherwise facing stress are more susceptible to schizophrenia — and those are all factors experienced by new immigrants, he noted.
Dr. Tang said those problems may be more acute for immigrants now than several decades ago, since there are fewer jobs generally and larger numbers of highly skilled newcomers who cannot find work in their field.
Meanwhile, Jesse Bigelow would like Canadians to better understand the debilitating disease and realize that many patients, like him, can lead productive lives under treatment.
As a teenager, he led an enviable existence: skilled at sports, he also played in rock bands and had no shortage of girlfriends.
Then at 19, Mr. Bigelow began hearing male voices he thought were the devil, perceived female voices that seemed divine, and was often overcome with paranoia.
“I fully believed I was a prophet, I fully believed I was communicating with God,” he said Tuesday. “At one point, I actually believed I was Jesus Christ.”
Mr. Bigelow, now 34, was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. Now taking the anti-psychotic drug clozapine, he is symptom-free and works as a mental-health peer supporter for other patients.
source:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/05/immigration-lack-of-sunshine-cited-as-possible-culprits-behind-spike-in-canadian-schizophrenia-cases/
