Folate and vitamin B12 reduce disabling schizophrenia symptoms in some patients

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This is from a couple of years ago - but wanted to highlight it for people:

Adding the dietary supplements folate and vitamin B12 to treatment with antipsychotic medication improved a core symptom component of schizophrenia in a study of more than 100 patients. The study focused on negative symptoms of schizophrenia – which include apathy, social withdrawal, and a lack of emotional expressiveness. While the level of improvement across all participants was modest, results were more significant in individuals carrying specific variants in genes involved with folate metabolism. The report from a team based at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) will appear in the journal JAMA Psychiatry (formerly Archives of General Psychiatry) and has been issued online.

“The symptoms of schizophrenia are complex, and antipsychotic medications provide no relief for some of the most disabling parts of the illness. These include negative symptoms, which can be particularly devastating,” says Joshua Roffman, MD, MMSc, of the MGH Department of Psychiatry, corresponding author of the JAMA Psychiatry paper. "Our finding that folate plus vitamin B12 supplementation can improve negative symptoms opens a new potential avenue for treatment of schizophrenia. Because treatment effects differed based on which genetic variants were present in each participant, the results also support a personalized medical approach to treating schizophrenia.

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“For participants who did show a benefit, it took the full 16 weeks of treatment for that benefit to appear,” Roffman explains. "While we don’t know why this is the case, changes in gene expression – which take time – are a likely explanation.

Full Story here:

http://www.massgeneral.org/about/pressrelease.aspx?id=1559

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Thanks for tha article. I take b12 and folate the methyl kind. I tested low in both of these. Feeling better after a few weeks so I can’t wait for week 16. I have tried so many supplements over the last 5 years. Finally found something that works. Don’t know if I have this mutation. There is also some hits on d3 and sz.

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http://mobile.nutraingredients.com/Research/Low-vitamin-D-linked-to-schizophrenic-brain-dysfunction

One of many articles on vitamin D3 and sz.
This article doesn’t state it but other articles tell you about also taking K2 or getting it from food.

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so in other words, if we take the vitamins we took in pregnancy we might get a few better things going on. thats so col xx i have started doing that now anyway as well as replacing a few hings for the menopause (cos the nurse thought i might be going through that as well). ooh so theres hope yet xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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I talked to my pdoc about starting Deplin and he was against it but I might try it in the future.

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If anyone is going to use folate, use l-methylfolate instead of the regular kind because the methylated kind crosses the blood brain barrier, making it particularly useful for psychiatric purposes.

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I like Methylcobalamin and Hydroxocobalamin. I never take Cyanocobalamin.

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Good - just like was mentioned in this research:

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I gave up sugar and i take multi b vitamins and eat meat for the b vitamins and still take a low dose of meds and i havent heard voices in over a year

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I take a b complex tablet as well as d3. Seen an improvement.

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