Why are immigrants at increased risk for psychosis? Vitamin D insufficiency, epigenetic mechanisms, or both?
Schizophrenia is somewhat of a hot topic with many therapists. There is little thought to physiological alterations and how we could impact this condition with functional medicine. To them, it’s a hard wired problem that requires meds to control. The research, on the other hand, disagrees with this attitude greatly. This is a thought process as to why we see some of the patterns of schizophrenia in immigrants and raises some very interesting questions as to how to manage/prevent schizophrenia.
We already know that Vit D plays a large role in neurologic function and is very important during pregnancy. The thought process is that immigrants may move from an area of heavy sunlight exposure and sufficient Vit D to an area of reduced sunlight exposure and deficient Vit D. Quite frankly, the research is strongly in support of functional medicine approaches to schizophrenia, and yet, disappointingly, this type of approach is shunned by the group of providers that treat it the most. Welcome to medicine.