This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Maternal thyroid deficiency during pregnancy increases risk for schizophrenia

Hypothyroxinemia during early to mid-gestation was associated with increased risk for schizophrenia in offspring, according to recent findings.

“Clinical hypothyroidism during pregnancy is an established risk factor for cognitive dysfunction of offspring and neuroanatomic abnormalities including reduced hippocampal volume,” David Gyllenberg, MD, PhD, of the University of Turku, Finland, and colleagues wrote. “An emerging literature has yielded intriguing evidence that hypothyroxinemia is also associated with delayed cognitive, motor, and speech development in offspring.”

To determine associations between maternal thyroid deficiency during early to mid-gestation and schizophrenia in offspring, researchers conducted a nested case-control study of maternal sera from a national Finnish birth cohort of all pregnancies since 1983. Maternal sera of 1,010 case-control pairs were evaluated for free thyroxine and sera of 948 case-control pairs were evaluated for thyroid-stimulating hormone.

Alan S. Brown

Maternal hypothyroxinemia was associated with an increased risk for schizophrenia (OR = 1.75; 95% CI, 1.22-2.5; P = .002).

When adjusting for maternal psychiatric history, province of birth and maternal smoking during pregnancy, the association remained significant (OR = 1.7; 95% CI, 1.13-2.55; P = .01).

“This work adds to a body of literature suggesting that maternal influences, both environmental and genetic, contribute to the risk of schizophrenia. Although replication in independent studies is required before firm conclusions can be drawn, the study was based on a national birth cohort with a large sample size, increasing the plausibility of the findings,” study researcher Alan S. Brown, MD, MPH, of the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University Medical Center and New York State Psychiatric Institute, said in a press release. – by Amanda Oldt

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.