childhood CMV encephalitis --> 16x psychosis risk

[Guest guest]

PMID 18056223 looks like a pretty humdrum abstract:

" There was a slightly increased risk of nonaffective psychotic illness

associated with viral CNS infections, as well as schizophrenia. There

was no evidence of increased risk in relation to bacterial infections.

When divided into specific agents, exposures to mumps virus or

cytomegalovirus were associated with subsequent psychoses. "

I don't have the full text. However, I have it on good authority that

childhood CMV encephalitis was a 16x risk factor for nonaffective

psychosis. Sixteen is what I call a very serious number. I wonder if

it was statistically significant. This study was done on a registry of

1.2 million people, but I'm not sure how common childhood CMV

encephalitis is. I guess, to find a risk ratio of 16, at least one

non-encephalitis subject and 16 CMV subjects had to come down with

psychosis (because you cant have a fraction of a person) - so that

sounds as if it would be very highly significant.

Ewald has cited a finding that identical twins are more likely to be

concordant for schizophrenia if they are the kind that share an

amniotic sac (or whatever it is, maybe some other structure - some

share it, some don't). I haven't ever examined that work. It

immediately makes one think of a pathogen. I guess maybe it could also

just be a surrogate for the age at which the twinning of the fetus, or

whatever you call it, occurs; the resulting twins might be more likely

to share schizophrenia if they share some epigenetic error that takes

place in the single progenitor fetus, prior to twinning.

[Guest guest]

Here's a commentary covering these exciting findings - actually make

that one exciting finding and some, uh, " other " findings - involving

quantitatively minor differences, probably not unlikely to be blips or

artifacts (even if the p values are under 0.05 or 0.01).

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/165/1/A40

BIG, BIG FLIPPING DIFFERENCE - GRANDE, LARGE.

" Psychosis risk was almost tripled by childhood mumps exposure

[encephalitis] and was over 16 times as high after cytomegalovirus

exposure [encephalitis]. "

MIGHTY SMALL DIFFERENCE

" Veling et al. (p. 66) identified social isolation as a risk factor

for psychotic disorders among immigrants in The Hague. [...]

Immigrants in neighborhoods with high densities of immigrants from the

same country had a rate of psychotic illness similar to that of native

Dutch residents, but those in neighborhoods with low densities of the

same ethnic group had a rate more than double that for the Dutch. "

IMMENSELY, DOWNRIGHT-OVERWHELMINGLY UNDERWHELMING DIFFERENCE

" IgG antibodies to Toxoplasma gondii were compared in service members

medically discharged with schizophrenia between 1992 and 2001 and

matched healthy subjects. The antibody level was nearly 25% higher for

the subjects with schizophrenia in the 6 months preceding the

diagnosis or after it. "