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Published on: September 7, 2013
Exposure to sunlight, vitamin D and schizophrenia
1Department of Psychiatry, University of Edinburgh, 3 West Castle Road, EH10 5AT, Edinburgh, UK.
Abstract:
The hypothesis that vitamin D deficiency in pregnancy or early infancy may contribute to the aetiology of schizophrenia was tested by examining the relationship between population exposure to sunlight, which promotes the synthesis of vitamin D in the summer months, and the monthly rate of schizophrenic births in two large data sets--22,000 schizophrenic patients born in England or Wales between 1921 and 1960, and 8000 born in Scotland between 1932 and 1960. No convincing relationship could be found in either cohort.
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