Background: Inflammatory mechanisms are reported to play important roles in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. The
neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is a simple and easily accessible indicator of the systemic inflammatory response. Our goal was
to investigate whether NLR was higher in patients with schizophrenia than in healthy comparison subjects similar in age, sex, and
body mass index.
Subjects and methods: In this multicenter cross-sectional study, we analyzed 156 non-obese patients with schizophrenia and 89
healthy control subjects for complete blood count. The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale was used to determine the severity of clinical
pathology.
Results: The mean±SD NLR of patients with schizophrenia was significantly higher than that of healthy controls (2.6±1.1 vs.
1.9±0.6, respectively, p0.05).
Conclusions: Our findings suggest that NLR levels are increased in physically healthy, non-obese, patients with schizophrenia
when compared with physically and mentally healthy individuals. To our knowledge, this is the first study that demonstrated the
association between NLR and schizophrenia
