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

Study confirms link between maternal malnutrition, psychosis risk

Inadequate maternal weight gain during pregnancy was associated with increased risk for psychoses in offspring, according to recent findings.

“Deficits in maternal nutrition during pregnancy, including micronutrient deficiencies (eg, folate, vitamin D, iron) and protein-caloric malnutrition, have been associated with abnormalities in offspring neurodevelopment,” Euan Mackay, MSc, of Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, and colleagues wrote. “A range of maternal nutritional states during pregnancy may contribute to the risk for psychoses in offspring.”

To assess effects of gestational weight gain during pregnancy and maternal BMI in early pregnancy on risk for nonaffective psychoses in offspring, researchers analyzed data from Swedish health and population registers to follow 526,042 individuals born from 1982 through 1989 from age 13 years, until Dec. 31, 2011.

Overall, 2,910 study participants had nonaffective psychoses at the end of follow-up, of which 704 had narrowly defined schizophrenia.

Among participants with nonaffective psychoses, 6.32% had mothers with extremely inadequate gestational weight gain, defined by researchers as less than 8 kg for mothers with normal baseline BMI, compared with 4.52% of unaffected participants.

Extremely inadequate gestational weight gain was associated with increased risk for nonaffective psychoses among offspring in adjusted (HR = 1.32; 95% CI, 1.13-1.54) and matched-sibling analysis (HR = 1.61; 95% CI, 1.02-2.56).

Similar associations were found for schizophrenia.

Adjusted analysis indicated a small association between mild maternal thinness in early pregnancy (HR = 1.21; 95% CI, 1.01-1.45) and paternal severe thinness (HR = 2.53; 95% CI, 1.26-5.07) and increased risk for nonaffective psychoses in offspring.

Matched-sibling analysis indicated no association between maternal underweight, overweight or obesity with risk for nonaffective psychoses in offspring.

“The present study, based on Swedish national registries, represents a substantial advance by providing evidence that a similar association is detectable among individuals in a generally well-fed population in more ordinary circumstances,” Ezra Susser, MD, DrPH, and Katherine M. Keyes, PhD, of Columbia University, New York, wrote in an accompanying editorial. “Also notable, the study included strengths of design not possible in the natural experiments, such as rigorous control for parental psychiatric conditions and comparison of affected and unaffected siblings. Thus, it contributes to an increasingly robust body of convergent evidence for a role of prenatal nutritional deficiency in the early origins of psychosis and strengthens the argument for examining prenatal nutritional supplements and dietary patterns as a means of prevention.” – by Amanda Oldt

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.