Metabolic syndrome and diabetes susceptibility relations clinics and psychiatric features with some schizophrenic outpatients in Bolu

Schizophrenia is a serious mental health problem whose etiology is not known precisely. It is a disorder which causes overt disability. Its diagnosis is made on the classification of symptoms observed. The life expectance is shorter than the general population in schizophrenia and the most frequent cause of death is cardiovascular disorders. Metabolic syndrome, hyperlipidemia and diabetic tendency are risk factors for caridovascular disorder and mortality. Diabetes Mellitus is found more in schizophrenia patients compared to the general population. The high comorbidity between schizophrenia and Type II Diabetes suggests that there may be a biological tendency between these two disorders. Schizophrenia is a heterogenous disorder with different phenotypes and its association with metabolic syndrome can be considered as a different endophenotype. We aimed to investigate and compare blood glucose disturbances, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome frequency and their association with psychopathological findings and minor physical anomalies in schizophrenia patients and in controls. Previous studies showed that the frequency of minor physical anomalies were greater in schizophrenia patients compared to the general population. In our study we found that minor physical anomalies were more frequent especially in the region of head in schizophrenia patients.We also found that metabolic syndrome frequency was %37.1 according to ATP III criteria and %40 according to IDF criteria in schizophrenic patients. This ratio was higher than two studies and lower than one study investigating the frequency metabolic syndrome in schizophrenia patients in Turkey, but it was similar to other studies in different countries. We found that there was no difference in the levels of triglyceride, total cholesterol and HDL except LDL which was higher in schizophrenia patients. Blood glucose levels were significantly higher in the patient group but there was no difference in terms of insulin resistance. Also there was no difference in fasting blood glucose levels, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome frequency between patients receiving monotherapy or combination therapy. There was a significant association between insulin resistance and minor physical anomaly frequency and positive family history of psychiatric disorder.As a result, we found that a positive family history of psychiatric disorder increases the risk of development of metabolic syndrome in patients. This finding may indicate a biological tendency between psychiatric disorders and metabolic syndrome and this biological tendency may also be associated with phenotypic characteristics of the patients as well. Further studies in this topic must be done especially in relatives of schizophrenia patients.Key words: schizophrenia, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, minor physical anomalies