Antibiotic for schizophrenia: Doxycycline, a widely used antibiotic, may help reduce the risk of developing schizophrenia in young people, according to a new study based on Finnish health data.
The drug, commonly prescribed for respiratory and skin infections, has previously been shown to reduce inflammation in brain cells. Researchers now suggest it could also play a protective role in the brain changes linked to schizophrenia.
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Schizophrenia is a serious mental health disorder marked by delusions, hallucinations, disorganised thinking and altered emotional responses. It is estimated to affect about one in every 200 people worldwide and, in its acute phase, can be among the most disabling of all health conditions, according to the World Health Organization.
In the new study, scientists from the UK, Finland and Ireland analysed records from 56,400 people born between 1987 and 1997 who had used psychiatric services between the ages of 13 and 18 and had been prescribed antibiotics. Using Finland’s national health register, they compared those who had received doxycycline in adolescence with those treated with other antibiotics.
After 10 years of follow-up, the risk of developing schizophrenia was 30–35% lower in the group that had been treated with doxycycline as teenagers, the researchers report in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Lead author Prof Ian Kelleher, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the University of Edinburgh, explained that adolescence is a key period for “synaptic pruning”, a normal brain process where excess connections between nerve cells are trimmed to make networks more efficient. In schizophrenia, this pruning appears to become overactive.