Database analysis of children and adolescents with Bipolar Disorder consuming a micronutrient formula

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Eleven previous reports have shown potential benefit of a 36-ingredient micronutrient formula (known as EMPowerplus) for the treatment of psychiatric symptoms. The current study asked whether children (7-18 years) with pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD) benefited from this same micronutrient formula; the impact of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) on their response was also evaluated.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data were available from an existing database for 120 children whose parents reported a diagnosis of PBD; 79% were taking psychiatric medications that are used to treat mood disorders; 24% were also reported as ADHD. Using Last Observation Carried Forward (LOCF), data were analyzed from 3 to 6 months of micronutrient use.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>At LOCF, mean symptom severity of bipolar symptoms was 46% lower than baseline (effect size (ES) = 0.78) (<it>p </it>< 0.001). In terms of responder status, 46% experienced >50% improvement at LOCF, with 38% still taking psychiatric medication (52% drop from baseline) but at much lower levels (74% reduction in number of medications being used from baseline). The results were similar for those with both ADHD and PBD: a 43% decline in PBD symptoms (ES = 0.72) and 40% in ADHD symptoms (ES = 0.62). An alternative sample of children with just ADHD symptoms (n = 41) showed a 47% reduction in symptoms from baseline to LOCF (ES = 1.04). The duration of reductions in symptom severity suggests that benefits were not attributable to placebo/expectancy effects. Similar findings were found for younger and older children and for both sexes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The data are limited by the open label nature of the study, the lack of a control group, and the inherent self-selection bias. While these data cannot establish efficacy, the results are consistent with a growing body of research suggesting that micronutrients appear to have therapeutic benefit for children with PBD with or without ADHD in the absence of significant side effects and may allow for a reduction in psychiatric medications while improving symptoms. The consistent reporting of positive changes across multiple sites and countries are substantial enough to warrant a call for randomized clinical trials using micronutrients.</p

Polygenic burden associated to oligodendrocyte precursor cells and radial glia influences the hippocampal volume changes induced by aerobic exercise in schizophrenia patients

Hippocampal volume decrease is a structural hallmark of schizophrenia (SCZ), and convergent evidence from postmortem and imaging studies suggests that it may be explained by changes in the cytoarchitecture of the cornu ammonis 4 (CA4) and dentate gyrus (DG) subfields. Increasing evidence indicates that aerobic exercise increases hippocampal volume in CA subfields and improves cognition in SCZ patients. Previous studies showed that the effects of exercise on the hippocampus might be connected to the polygenic burden of SCZ risk variants. However, little is known about cell type-specific genetic contributions to these structural changes. In this secondary analysis, we evaluated the modulatory role of cell type-specific SCZ polygenic risk scores (PRS) on volume changes in the CA1, CA2/3, and CA4/DG subfields over time. We studied 20 multi-episode SCZ patients and 23 healthy controls who performed aerobic exercise, and 21 multi-episode SCZ patients allocated to a control intervention (table soccer) for 3 months. Magnetic resonance imaging-based assessments were performed with FreeSurfer at baseline and after 3 months. The analyses showed that the polygenic burden associated with oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPC) and radial glia (RG) significantly influenced the volume changes between baseline and 3 months in the CA4/DG subfield in SCZ patients performing aerobic exercise. A higher OPC- or RG-associated genetic risk burden was associated with a less pronounced volume increase or even a decrease in CA4/DG during the exercise intervention. We hypothesize that SCZ cell type-specific polygenic risk modulates the aerobic exercise-induced neuroplastic processes in the hippocampus