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Shedding light on suicide and schizophrenia: hormonal changes and vitamin deficiencies are implicated - Patterns - vitamin D deficiency - Brief Article
Psychology Today, May-June, 2002 by Anna Schneider-Mayerson

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MORE REASONS TO LOVE AND HATE OUR favorite star. Sunlight is positively, if counterintuitively, linked to an increased risk of suicide, while too little sun causes vitamin D deficiency, a factor newly implicated in schizophrenia.

Suicides peak in May and June in the Northern Hemisphere and in November and December in the Southern Hemisphere.
Indeed, the risk increases between 8 and 50 percent in each of the 20 countries surveyed by Dimitrios Trichopoulos, M.D., a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. "My suspicion is that sunlight affects suicide risk through hormonal factors like melatonin," says Trichopoulos. Melatonin is suppressed by sunlight and is known to play a role in mood regulation. The hormones cortisol, serotonin and tryptophan may be affected by sunlight, as well.

There is also a seasonal pattern in the births of schizophrenics. Studies confirm a 10 percent increase in these births in the Northern Hemisphere between February and April.
This trend, coupled with findings that children of dark-skinned immigrants to northern countries have high rates of schizophrenia, led scientists to surmise a shortage of sunlight as a possible factor in the illness.

Shedding light on suicide and schizophrenia: hormonal changes and vitamin deficiencies are implicated - Patterns - vitamin D deficiency - Brief Article Psychology Today - Find Articles


Supplements for babies may be helpful too

Objective: Based on clues from epidemiology and animal experiments, low vitamin D during early life has been proposed as a risk factor for schizophrenia

Conclusion: Vitamin D supplementation during the first year of life is associated with a reduced risk of schizophrenia in males. Preventing hypovitaminosis D during early life may reduce the incidence of schizophrenia.

ScienceDirect - Schizophrenia Research : Vitamin D supplementation during the first year of life and risk of schizophrenia: a Finnish birth cohort study