A recent study suggests that the antibiotic doxycycline may reduce the risk of schizophrenia in young people. Conducted by an international team including researchers from the University of Edinburgh, the investigation analyzed large-scale healthcare data from Finland, focusing on over 56,000 adolescents who had received mental health services.
The findings indicate that adolescents treated with doxycycline had a 30-35% lower risk of developing schizophrenia compared to those prescribed other antibiotics. Doxycycline, typically used to treat bacterial infections and acne, may influence the development of schizophrenia through its effects on inflammation and brain development.
Previous research has shown that doxycycline can mitigate inflammation in brain cells and impact synaptic pruning, a natural process that refines neural connections. Excessive synaptic pruning has been linked to the onset of schizophrenia, a severe mental disorder that usually appears in early adulthood and is characterized by symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions.
Professor Ian Kelleher, the study’s lead researcher and a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Edinburgh, emphasized the significance of these findings. “As many as half of the people who develop schizophrenia had previously attended child and adolescent mental health services for other mental health problems,” he stated. “Currently, we lack interventions that can effectively reduce the risk of schizophrenia in these young individuals. This makes our findings particularly exciting.”
While the study provides important insights, it is essential to note that it was observational rather than a randomized controlled trial. As such, the researchers caution against drawing definitive conclusions regarding causality. Professor Kelleher added, “This is an important signal to further investigate the protective effect of doxycycline and other anti-inflammatory treatments in adolescent psychiatry patients.”
The research was conducted in collaboration with the University of Oulu, University College Dublin, and the St John of God Hospitaller Services Group. It was funded by the Health Research Board and published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
These findings open avenues for further research into how existing medications can be repurposed to potentially serve as preventive measures against severe mental illnesses, underscoring the ongoing need for innovative approaches in mental health care.