A five-year follow-up study of antioxidants, oxidative stress and polyunsaturated fatty acids in schizophrenia.

Objective: Oxidative stress and dysregulated antioxidant defence may be involved in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. In the present study, we investigated changes in antioxidants and oxidative stress from an acute to a later stable phase. We hypothesised that the levels of oxidative markers are increased in schizophrenia compared with healthy controls; change from the acute to the stable phase; and are associated with the levels of membrane polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) and symptom severity.

Using motivational techniques to reduce cardiometabolic risk factors in long term psychiatric inpatients: a naturalistic interventional study.

Background: People with severe mental illness have markedly reduced life expectancy; cardiometabolic disease is a major cause. Psychiatric hospital inpatients have elevated levels of cardiometabolic risk factors and are to a high degree dependent of the routines and facilities of the institutions. Studies of lifestyle interventions to reduce cardiometabolic risk in psychiatric inpatients are few.

Cardiometabolic risk factors, physical activity and psychiatric status in patients in long-term psychiatric inpatient departments.

Purpose: Cardiovascular diseases are a major cause for the markedly reduced life expectancy in people with severe mental illness (SMI). Hospital departments should provide adequate prevention of cardiometabolic risk by optimizing prevention and treatment. Characteristics of cardiometabolic risk factors in inpatients are still not well known.

Lipid profiles in schizophrenia associated with clinical traits: a five year follow-up study.

Background: Alterations in serum and membrane lipids may be involved in schizophrenia pathophysiology. It is not known whether lipid profiles are associated with disease severity or current symptom level.

Methods: Clinical and lipid data were gathered from 55 patients with schizophrenia admitted to psychiatric emergency wards in an acute stage of the disease (T1).

Association between serum lipids and membrane fatty acids and clinical characteristics in patients with schizophrenia.

Objective: Earlier reports indicate that patients with schizophrenia have altered lipid levels in serum and cell membranes. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between clinical characteristics and serum and membrane lipids.

Method: Fifty-five patients with schizophrenia and 51 healthy controls were included.

A randomized placebo-controlled trial of an omega-3 fatty acid and vitamins E+C in schizophrenia.

Membrane lipid metabolism and redox regulation may be disturbed in schizophrenia. We examined the clinical effect of adding an omega-3 fatty acid and/or vitamins E+C to antipsychotics. It was hypothesized that lower baseline levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) would predict more benefit from the add-on treatment.

Clinical and biochemical validation of two endophenotypes of schizophrenia defined by levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids in red blood cells.

Background: Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are bimodally distributed in acute schizophrenia, suggesting two endophenotypes. We intended to characterize these endophenotypes clinically. Our a priori hypothesis was that low PUFA patients have more negative symptoms.

[Combination treatment of depression].

Severe depression is a common diagnosis and a number of studies have demonstrated the superiority of antidepressants to placebos. More than half of the patients remain depressed despite initial treatment. If reasons like incorrect diagnosis and non-optimal choice of drug or doses are excluded, combination therapy may be considered.

Bimodal distribution of polyunsaturated fatty acids in schizophrenia suggests two endophenotypes of the disorder.

Background: There is conflicting evidence of whether polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in red blood cells are bimodally distributed in schizophrenia. The purpose of this study was to examine the distribution of PUFA, as well as its links to plausible causal factors.

Methods: A 16-week cohort study and a case-control study as part of a randomized controlled trial.

[Treatment of bipolar disorder during pregnancy and in the postpartum period].

Background: Pharmacological treatment and prophylaxis of bipolar disorders during pregnancy and in the postpartum period imply complicated clinical assessments.

Material And Method: This article is based on a non-systematic search in PubMed and the authors' clinical experience.

Results: If a woman is already using a prophylactic drug at the time of pregnancy, she can in general continue to do so during pregnancy, with the exception of valproate.

An empirical examination of sex differences in scoring preschool children's aggression.

Sex differences in adults' observations and ratings of children's aggression was studied in a sample of preschool children (N=89, mean age=44.00months, SD=8.48).

A longitudinal study of preschool children's (Homo sapiens) sex segregation.

In this 2-year longitudinal study, we hypothesized that sex of the human child (Homo sapiens), differences in physical activity, and time of the year would interact to influence preschool children's sex segregation. We also hypothesized that activity would differentially relate to peer rejection for boys and girls. Consistent with the first hypothesis, high-activity girls started off as the most integrated group but became more segregated with time, whereas high-activity boys remained the most segregated group across the duration of the study.

[Follow-up of patients that use lithium].

Lithium has been among the most important pharmacological treatments of psychiatric disease for more than 50 years. The main indication is treatment and prophylaxis of bipolar disease. Lithium is also used in the treatment of schizophrenia conditions with affective symptoms.

Adsorption of polyelectrolyte-nanoparticle systems on silica: influence of ionic strength.

In this work the effect of ionic strength on the adsorption behavior of cationic polyelectrolyte (acrylamide-acrylamidopropyltrimethylammonium chloride) and negatively charged silica particles has been studied by means of ellipsometry. The adsorption of the polyelectrolyte was observed to increase with increasing salt concentration, a behavior typical for polyelectrolytes with a screening-reduced solvency and a nonelectrostatic affinity for the surface. A similar dependence on the ionic strength was observed when studying the electrolyte effect on the nanoparticle adsorption to the preadsorbed polyelectrolyte film, suggesting that the polyelectrolyte surface conformations largely govern the binding capacity of the particles to the surface.

Dependence of intestinal amino acid uptake on dietary protein or amino acid levels.

To understand how intestinal amino acid (AA) transport is regulated by dietary substrate levels, we measured uptake of seven AAs and glucose across the jejunal brush-border membrane of mice kept on one of three isocaloric rations differing in nitrogen content. In the high-protein ration, uptake increased by 77-81% for the nonessential, less toxic AAs, proline, and aspartate but only by 32-61% for the more toxic essential AAs tested. In the nitrogen-deficient ration, uptake decreased for the nonessential aspartate and proline but stayed constant or increased for essential AAs and for the nonessential alanine.

Comparison of different dietary sugars as inducers of intestinal sugar transporters.

Intestinal sugar transport increases with dietary carbohydrate levels, but the specific regulatory signals involved have been little studied. Hence we compared rations containing one of five sugars [D-glucose, D-galactose, 3-O-methyl-D-glucose (3-O-MG), D-fructose, and maltose] in their effects on brush-border uptake of five transported solutes (D-glucose, D-galactose, 3-O-MG, D-fructose, and L-proline) by everted sleeves of mouse small intestine. As confirmed by transepithelial potential difference (PD) measurements, there is a distinct fructose transporter that does not evoke a PD, along with one or more aldohexose transporters that do evoke a PD.