An add-on treatment to mainline antipsychotics is proposed for TRS that targets the dysregulations of the transsulfuration pathway and the dysregulations of other pathways stemming from the transsulfuration pathway being dysregulated.
Damn I wish I knew what they were proposing, but I wonder if it isn’t just NAC. I’m not paying $42 to find out. (The cost to access the full paper).
BTW @firemonkey nice find.
Possibly this relates back to this recent finding:
providing a new direction for research into drug therapies, higher than normal levels of the hydrogen sulfide-producing enzyme can act as biomarker for this type of schizophrenia
Going maybe off at a slight tangent . Hasn’t there been some talk about broccoli extract ?
Broccoli contains hydrogen sulfide, which emits a sulfur like odor when it is cooked. It may smell bad but it tastes great!
I think the idea, if levels of hydrogen sulfide are higher than normal, would be to reduce them.
But as far as I know, no one knows if that would change anything anyway. I think that has yet to be tested.
I’m more confused now because it says
Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) levels are low in schizophrenia
but the other paper says
higher than normal levels of the hydrogen sulfide-producing enzyme
Maybe I’m just not understanding hydrogen sulfide vs its enzyme. Or maybe these are two different subtypes of schizophrenia.
I got the paper! Thanks for reminding me about the existence of Sci Hub.
https://sci-hub.tw/10.1515/revneuro-2019-0057
A meta-analysis indicated that a 5 μm/l increase in plasma homocysteine levels is associated with a 70% increase in the risk of developing schizophrenia (Muntjewerff et al., 2006). There is a 2.15 odds ratio (95% confidence interval = 1.39–3.32; p = 5.3 × 10−4) increase in risk schizophrenia for every 1 standard deviation increase in the natural log-transformed plasma totalhomocysteine levels (Numata et al., 2015)
Plasma homocysteine levels are positively correlated with negative symptoms (Misiak et al., 2014). A review article (Moustafa et al., 2014) indicated that negative symptoms of schizophrenia are positively correlatedwith homocysteine levels. Plasma homocysteine levelsare positively correlated with depression in schizophrenia (Narayan et al., 2014)
We also detail how targeting dysregulations of the transsulfuration pathway and dysregulations of other pathways that stem from dysregulations of the transsulfuration pathway, via an add-on treatment to mainlineantipsychotics, could be an effective treatment for TRS,where (a) levels of molybdenum-containing proteins are increased through supplementation with sodium
molybdate; (b) levels of selenoproteins are increasedthrough supplementation with Se-methylselenocysteine; (c) the activity of enzymes in the transsulfurationpathway is increased through supplementation withtaurine, L-arginine, and L-citrulline; (d) iron-sulfur proteins involved in oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS)are increased through supplementation with iron fromiron sulfate, coenzyme Q10, copper, pantothenic acid,and acetyl-L-carnitine; (e) enzymes involved in L-cysteinemetabolism and selenium metabolism are supportedby vitamin B6; and (f) increased protein synthesis is supported by supplementation with whey protein. Allthree dimensions of schizophrenia, positive symptoms,negative symptoms, and symptoms of disorganization,would be treated by the proposed treatment.
I just want to add, some of these things are quite likely safe in ordinary amounts, like B-6 and whey protein, but ask your doctor because:
Future clinical trials of the recommended supplements are the most appropriate way to investigate whether addressing dysregulations of the transsulfuration pathway and regulations of other pathways that can arise from dysregulations of the transsulfuration pathway can treat TRS
You can definitely overdose on things like iron and copper.
Can agree, found out the hard way I’m unable to process iron and am allergic to copper. Am also treatment resistant, so even their solutions don’t work for me.
The more I read about these two studies, the more confused I get. Have they identified two different types of schizophrenia with different biomarkers? One high and one low hydrogen sulfide? It would seem like it would be essential to know which kind you had, if that’s the case. And where would you even get tested?
This makes it just seem like a stab in the dark.
Plus they mention high homocysteine (as a bad thing). NAC helps lower that, so does sulforaphane (according to the internet) but both release large amounts of hydrogen sulfide. Which might be good or might be bad, maybe.
Who else might have an idea about it?
Sorry. This is all above my head 
I mean this isn’t anywhere close to what I usually read about, but from just looking a bit at it they look a little contradictory, so maybe they are biomarkers for two different sz subtypes. Alternatively, it looks like one of the studies refers to hydrogen sulfide measured in blood and the other refers to hydrogen sulfide measured in mice brains and post-mortem human brains, so that could maybe explain it? Although I’m really out on a limb here, so probably not. Sorry.
@anon9798425 @twinklestars I leave it to more scientifically intelligent people like yourselves to make sense of it .
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term="hydrogen+sulfide"+"schizophrenia" has just 15 articles using those search terms .
To complicate matters further, the one study finding high levels of hydrogen sulfide found it in blood, but also in hair.
I dunno, having multiple different subtypes that might require completely different supplements would explain a lot about why the studies are often equivocal.