Are There Immune Suppressing Drugs to Treat Schizophrenia?

You can also check us out at http://mhcd.org/blog  This article says there is support for Immune suppressing drugs to treat schizophrenia. It talks about it in this story: “Although researchers have suspected that schizophrenia is linked to a dysfunctional immune system, a lack of evidence has kept away research funding that would allow the testing of immune-system suppressing drugs on schizophrenia patients.” They have been leading towards this research in other ways. I talked about them using antibiotics in another blog I wrote about earlier. I do think they are connected; it looks like they are looking at different avenues now with schizophrenia.
It goes on to say: “Thanks to new research that clearly demonstrates that the brains of people with schizophrenia may be under attack, however, scientists may be getting the go-ahead. In order to expose people to dangerous treatments- and immunosuppressive drugs do carry risks- you need serious evidence to suggest those drugs may be useful in treating the condition…” This is different from the other article in that they are not going to try antibiotics. “In the past, researchers have had great difficulty convincing an ethics committee that this treatment strategy for schizophrenia.” They will have to prove their research to be right on the mark, it looks like before they will be able to say this study is true.
It does have to do with inflammation as did the antibiotic article: “The new study, led by the Schizophrenia Research Institute, has shown immune cells in a key brain region affected by the disorder once thought to be inactive- are in fact causing inflammation and damage. This, in combination with evidence we already have from existing studies, adds to the argument from researchers that it is now reasonable to trial immunosuppressants on schizophrenia patients.” Is it just some of the people with schizophrenia or all of them, I guess the research will find out that question. I think everyone is different.
The article goes on to say: “This research that will lead to more effective treatment options with the potential to significantly improve a sufferer’s quality of life will now be greatly accelerated… The time to start further research and clinical trials is now… We can use this information to target specific aspects of immune system involved in schizophrenia more directly.” Better treatments will help a lot of people with schizophrenia. What they do not talk about is if some people’s brains are too damaged to help with a new treatment.
This last part is about the study: “As part of the study, researchers analyzed an area of the brain involved in regulation emotional and social behavior- the orbitofrontal cortex- in 40 people, half with schizophrenia. About 40 percent of those with schizophrenia had higher levels of inflammation in that section of the brain. The part of the brain we looked at is indeed in crisis in people with schizophrenia… This raises the possibility that this is a new root cause of the disease.” Inflammation is a bad thing for any part of the body and probably the brain. I hope they will let people know what they found out. If the drugs are risky, would people take them? They said forty percent had inflammation not all that they tested. I guess we will just have to wait and find out the results of this new study. It is an interesting study though. The two articles are connected by inflammation in the brain. The other article I wrote about uses an antibiotic to treat the inflammation. Both these studies might be beneficial. Make sure to check us out at http://mhcd.org/blog