Schizophrenia - to blame civilization

Schizophrenia - is a serious chronic mental illness Mental illness - ashamed to ask for help? Which makes the person incapable. It affects both men and women with equal frequency.

Schizophrenia is one of the most mysterious of mental disorders. This disease makes people unable to distinguish reality from fantasy. Symptoms of schizophrenia: delusions, hallucinations, slurred speech, lack of motivation and emotions Emotions and culture: how to decipher the emotional code . However, until now there is no medical research that would allow to ascertain the diagnosis.

Although we can not cure schizophrenia, however, doctors recommend to increase the amount of research in this field to make life easier for people with schizophrenia and their families, who often can not get the support they need so.

In people with schizophrenia, the following symptoms appear:

• Delusion false personal beliefs, regardless of common sense or obvious evidence to the contrary, and not explainable cultural context of the individual.
• Hallucinations, sensory perception (sound, touch, smell, taste), which occurs in the absence of real external stimuli (auditory hallucinations, voices and other sounds - is a common type of hallucinatory schizophrenia)
• Disorderly thoughts and disorganized behavior
• Incoherence
• Catatonic behavior, when the body of the patient remains stationary, and the people on what does not react.

The term "schizophrenia" has Greek roots and the Greek language means "split personality." This is an inaccurate medical definition. In Western culture, many people are of the opinion that schizophrenia - a multiple personality disorder. However, these are two different diseases, and people with schizophrenia are no individuals.

Diagnosis of schizophrenia and other mental disorders is carried out in accordance with quite stringent criteria. Time and duration of symptoms of the disease and symptomatic features - these are the parameters by which diagnosis is conducted. Actual symptoms of schizophrenia should be manifested for at least six months, or at least one month in the case of treatment.

Who is affected by this disease

There are different estimates on how many people put this diagnosis. The disease affects about one percent of the population. Fifty per cent of psychiatric patients with schizophrenia.

Most often, a schizophrenia affects people between 17 and 35 years old. In an earlier (teens) age the disease usually manifests itself in men, and in the later (20 to 35) - women. Many of them are incompetent. They can not work as a permanent or even perform simple tasks such as maintaining a conversation. Maybe some are so limited that they can not carry out activities that most people do not represent the slightest difficulty, for example, take a shower or cook food. Many of these people do not have homes. Some restore health to the extent, to lead a more or less independent life.

The causes of schizophrenia

The causes of this disease are unknown. But it is believed that there is a significant correlation of genetic, biological, environmental and psychological factors. It is not clear to the direct and indirect factors that cause this disease, but ongoing research has been steadily moving towards resolution of the problem and explaining the causes of schizophrenia.

The biological models of schizophrenia studied issues such as genetic (hereditary) predisposition, infectious agents, allergies and impaired metabolism.

It is known that schizophrenia can be inherited. Thus, the risk of this disease in identical twins person with schizophrenia is 40-50%. For the child, the parent with the disease, the risk of developing the disease is 10%. In the general population, the figure is 1%.

Currently there is a concept that in the development of schizophrenia polymeric genes involved and that such stressors How to beat stress? Create an oasis As prenatal, natal, perinatal and nonspecific stress factors involved in the emergence of susceptibility or predisposition that leads to disease. Neurotransmitters (substances that carry out the reaction of nerve cells) are also associated with the development of schizophrenia. List of studied neurotransmitters is big enough, but focuses on substances dopamine, serotonin and glutamate.

Also, recent studies have revealed little change in the structure and function of the brain, which show that, at least in part with schizophrenia may result from abnormalities in brain development.

Doctors are studying all possible medical causes of sudden changes in mental health or behavior. Sometimes the disease is easily treatable causes those symptoms that resemble the symptoms of schizophrenia.

Expert opinion

The last few years, the media all over the world, as well as public institutions of Great Britain, Canada and the United States are promoting the notion that smoking causes a number of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia.

Researchers at the Medical Faculty of the University of Keele in the UK compared the pattern of marijuana use and the incidence of schizophrenia in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2005.

The researchers found that "levels of incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and psychoses or remained stable or declining" during this period, despite the fact that cannabis use among the general population has increased.

The study's authors came to this conclusion: "The expected increase in the incidence of schizophrenia and psychoses were observed during the study period of ten years. Therefore, the assumption of a specific cause-and-effect relationship between marijuana use and the incidence of psychotic disorders is not confirmed ... This is consistent with other data that the increase in marijuana use does not entail an increase in the incidence of psychotic disorders. "

As a result of experiments on mice, researchers at the University of Minnesota discovered that prenatal viral infection may be associated with the development of schizophrenia and autism in children Autism in children: the warning signs .

In 2005, the same researchers first demonstrated that influenza virus intrauterine infection during early pregnancy leads to a "change in the subset of genes in the brain of the fetus, which can lead to irreversible changes in the structure and function of the brain."

Cedric Feshott writes about the latest research, led by Professor Keizo Tomonaga at Osaka University in Japan. According to him, the virus transmitted DNA may be a cause of mutation and psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and affective disorders.

Unfortunately, this discovery is currently being used to convince pregnant women be vaccinated against the flu in early pregnancy.

Known treatments

• Physical exercise
• Varied and balanced diet and omega-3 fatty acids
• Music