Vitamin D Deficiency Linked to Psychotic Symptoms in Adolescents
NEW YORK – Vitamin D deficiency was linked with an increased prevalence of psychotic symptoms in adolescents hospitalized for psychiatric reasons in a single-center study of 77 patients.
"The association of vitamin D deficiency with psychotic features warrants further investigation as a risk factor for both physical and mental health outcomes" in adolescents with serious mental illness, Dr. Barbara L. Gracious and her associates said in a poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
"The importance of vitamin D for brain development and function in both healthy and psychiatric populations is less well appreciated and understood, compared with its known role in bone health and emerging role in metabolic health," said Dr. Gracious, a psychiatrist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and her colleagues.
Prior study findings documented links between vitamin D levels and seasonal affective disorder, depression, and schizophrenia, observations that highlighted the potential for vitamin D levels to modulate vulnerability to mental disorders.