According to a recent study conducted by researchers at the Aarhus University in Denmark, there is a mutual link between schizophrenia and autoimmune disorders. While scientists have been aware for a long time that schizophrenia is highly correlated with the onset of autoimmune disorders such as psoriasis, Type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and hepatitis, this more recent study suggests that there is a kind of two-way street operative: those with schizophrenia are more likely to develop an autoimmune disease, and those with an autoimmune disease are more likely to develop from schizophrenia.
The massive study included almost 4 million individuals from the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register, Danish hospitals and the Danish Civil Registration. Those with schizophrenia were found to be 53 percent more likely than the non-schizophrenic individual to develop an autoimmune disease. Likewise, those who had either been hospitalized or received treatment for a serious infection were found to be 2.7 times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia than those who have not.
Indeed, according to the researchers, 6 percent of patients with schizophrenia suffer from autoimmune diseases which require hospital treatment. In fact, individuals who have a family with schizophrenia have a 6 percent higher chance of suffering from an autoimmune disease. The nature of the link between schizophrenia and autoimmune disorders, however, remains uncertain.
