Schizophrenia, a mental health condition, has a lot of stigmas attached to it. World Schizophrenia Day, observed on 24th of May every year, is an effort to destigmatise the disorder and educate people about it. More knowledge about the condition will help you help your loved ones suffering from schizophrenia. World Schizophrenia Day is part of the Schizophrenia Awareness Week, celebrated from the 20th of May every year. This week-long observance was initiated in 1986 by Helping Minds.

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Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterised by symptoms like hallucination, delusion, suicidal thoughts, absence of facial expressions, social withdrawal, etc. In most of the cases, the symptoms appear late in life and that’s why many people do not know that they have had it for many years. Usually, it shows symptoms slightly early in men compared to women. According to experts in the field, various factors including genetic inheritance, chemical imbalance in the brain, stressful past situations, and certain drugs can contribute the development of schizophrenia. As far as the diagnosis of the condition is concerned, doctors mostly depend on the symptoms and family history. They may perform certain tests like physical exam, MRI, CT scan, and psychiatric evaluation to rule out other mental health disorders. There is no specific treatment for schizophrenia yet. However, certain antipsychotic medications and psychosocial interventions may help manage the symptoms of this diseases making the lives of schizophrenia patients slightly easier.

DIET AND SCHIZOPHRENIA

On this World Schizophrenia Day, let’s take a close look at the association between food habits and this mental health disorder. Like many other diseases, foods play a significant role in the way schizophrenia manifests itself, suggests a growing body of research. Also, it has been found that people living with this condition have a distinctive eating pattern. Schizophrenia patients have a detrimental dietary pattern that is linked to increased body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC), says a study published in the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. A high BMI and WC can lead to obesity and related metabolic alterations, regardless of the pharmacological treatment being followed.

In a series of recent studies conducted at the Johns Hopkins Medicine hospital, the researchers found that a sulforaphane, a compound present in broccoli sprout, may restore the brain chemistry imbalance linked to schizophrenia. It does so by increasing the average levels of glutathione, a component of glutamate antioxidants, they observed. Glutamate is a neurotransmitter that helps in the message exchange between brain cells. Which is part of this series, had a team of researchers looking at five brain parts of schizophrenic patients. in the brain of people with and without this condition. They found that subjects with schizophrenia has 4 per cent and 8 per cent lower levels of glutamate in two different regions of the brain. These regions are anterior cingulate cortex brain and thalamus.

Another study of this series, revealed that sulforaphane effectively raised the average glutathione levels in the brains of the study subjects up to 30 per cent. Also, it positively affected the way messages were transmitted between their brain cells.

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