Higher vitamin B12 levels in neurodevelopmental disorders than in healthy controls and schizophrenia: A comparison among participants between 2 and 53 years.

Recent studies suggest that both high and low levels of vitamin B12 (vitB12) may have negative health impacts. We measured VitB12 in patients with the Neurodevelopmental disorders (ND) (n = 222), comprised of Autism Spectrum Disorders, specific Developmental disorders, and Intellectual Disability (aged 2-53 years), schizophrenia (n = 401), and healthy controls (HC) (n = 483). Age-and gender-adjusted vitB12 z-scores were calculated by comparisons with a reference population (n = 76 148). We found higher vitB12 in ND (median 420 pmol/L, mean z-score: 0.30) than in HC (316 pmol/L, z-score: 0.06, P < .01) and schizophrenia (306 pmol/L, z-score: -0.02, P < .001), which was significant after adjusting for age, gender, vitB12 supplement, folate, hemoglobin, leukocytes, liver, and kidney function (P < .02). In ND, 20% (n = 44) had vitB12 above 650 pmol/L, and 1% (n = 3) had below 150 pmol/L (common reference limits). In 6.3% (n = 14) of ND, vitB12 was above 2SD of mean in the age-and gender-adjusted reference population, which was more frequent than in HC (n = 8, 1.6%), OR: 4.0, P = .001. Low vitB12 was equally frequent as in HC, and vitB12 z-scores were equal across the age groups. To conclude, vitB12 was higher in ND than in HC and schizophrenia, suggesting a specific feature of ND, which warrants further studies to investigate the underlying mechanisms.

Low vitamin D is associated with negative and depressive symptoms in psychotic disorders.

BACKGROUND: There are indications that low S-25(OH)D is associated with increased disease severity in psychotic disorder. Our first aim was to investigate the relations between low S-25(OH)D and positive, negative and depressive symptoms. Our second aim was to explore if associations between S-25(OH)D and symptoms were influenced by levels of inflammatory markers. METHODS: Participants (N=358) with a medical history of one or more psychotic episodes were recruited. Current symptomatology was assessed by The Structured Interview for the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scaleanalyzed by a five-factor model. The Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia was used to assess depression and suicidal ideation. Blood samples were analyzed for S-25(OH)D, CRP, sTNF-R1, IL-Ra and OPG. We performed bivariate correlations and multiple regression models to evaluate the effect of S-25(OH)D on the outcomes. RESULTS: Low S-25(OH)D was significantly associated with negative symptoms (adjusted R2=0.113, F(6,357)=8.58, p<0.001) and with depression (adjusted R2=0.045, F(4,357)=5.233, p<0.001) when adjusting for possible confounding factors (i.e. gender, education, diagnose, hospitalization status, ethnicity, season and thyroid status). CRP was correlated with both S-25(OH)D (rho=-0.13, p=0.02) and negative symptoms (rho=0.14, p=0.01), but did not act as a mediator. The correlations between S-25(OH)D and the inflammatory markers sTNF-R1, IL-Ra and OPG were not significant. CONCLUSION: There is a strong association between low S-25(OH)D and higher negative and depressive symptoms in psychotic disorders. Randomized controlled trials should be performed to investigate the effect of vitamin D supplementation as adjuvant treatment strategy in patients with prominent negative or depressive symptoms.