Schizophrenia Research
Schizophrenia Research
5 years ago

Increase in serum HDL level is associated with less negative symptoms after one year of antipsychotic treatment in first-episode psychosis

A potential link between increase in total cholesterol and triglycerides and clinical improvement has been observed during antipsychotic drug treatment in chronic schizophrenia patients, possibly due to drug related effects on lipid biosynthesis. We examined whether changes in serum lipids are associated with alleviation of psychosis symptoms after one year of antipsychotic drug treatment in a cohort of first-episode psychosis (FEP) patients. Methods A total of 132 non-affective antipsychotic-treated FEP patients were included through the Norwegian Thematically Organized Psychosis (TOP) project. Data on antipsychotic usage, serum lipids (total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and triglycerides (TG)), body mass index (BMI) and clinical state were obtained at baseline and after 12months. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was used to assess psychotic symptoms. Mixed-effects models were employed to examine the relationship between serum lipids and psychotic symptoms while controlling for potential confounders including BMI. Results An increase in HDL during one year of antipsychotic treatment was associated with reduction in PANSS negative subscores (B=−0.48, p =0.03). This relationship was not affected by concurrent change in BMI (adjusted HDL: B=−0.54, p =0.02). No significant associations were found between serum lipids, BMI and PANSS positive subscores. Conclusion We found that an increase in HDL level during antipsychotic treatment is associated with improvement in negative symptoms in FEP. These findings warrant further investigation to clarify the interaction between lipid pathways and psychosis.

Publisher URL: www.sciencedirect.com/science

DOI: S0920996417306709

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.