Autism, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia all share several genetic risk factors, according to a major study in Lancet. http://bit.ly/Z0fUH0. (These conditions are much more prevalent in gluten sensitive persons.)
Interpretation
Our findings show that specific SNPs are associated with a range of psychiatric disorders of childhood onset or adult onset. In particular, variation in calcium-channel activity genes seems to have pleiotropic effects on psychopathology. These results provide evidence relevant to the goal of moving beyond descriptive syndromes in psychiatry, and towards a nosology informed by disease cause.
What does this mean. It means for most mental health issues, the diagnostic names don't really tell us what is going on.
And that there is at least one common metabolic weakness: calcium in communication between cells.
Now there is a lot of new information about calcium and inflammation, affecting the brain and the heart. And exciting developments around aquaporin 4 and how it can be supplemented to reduce brain inflammation. But that is a subject for another day.
To Your Health
Dr. Barbara
