Abstract
Author(s): Santasmita Pal1*,Chinmoy Ghosh1,Santa(Saha)Roy1, Shiuli Roy (Adak)2and Paul Suhrita3
Depression and schizophrenia are two disabling psychiatric diseaseswhich are complicated by insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and abnormal homocysteine metabolism. In the present study serum levels of homocysteine and insulin have been measured by ELISA using commercial kits and fasting blood glucose and lipid profile was estimated in Depression (n = 56), Schizophrenia (n = 53) and ageand sex matched control subjects (n = 56). The data are compared by ANOVA and post-hoc analysis. The serum homocysteine is markedly elevated compared to control both in Depression and schizophreniasubjects, but to a significantly higher extent in the latter. HOMA-IR is increased in the depressive subjects only compared to control. Likewise, Total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol were significantly higher in both depression and schizophrenia compared to control group. Overall, 38.89% of men and 25% of women have satisfied criteria of metabolic syndrome among depression. On the contrary, prevalence of metabolic syndrome was higher in women (30.77%) compared to men (23.53%) in case of schizophrenia. The analysis of the present data and those published by others suggest that depression and schizophrenia is associated with higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome. Hypertension and dyslipidemia is very common in both groups, but they often remain undetected. This study also indicates that homocysteine metabolism aplays role with respect to depression as well as schizophrenia irrespective of development of metabolic syndrome.