Lowered Serum Cesium Levels in Schizophrenia: Association with Immune-Inflammatory Biomarkers and Cognitive Impairments: Almulla et al - Feb 2020

[Sly Saint]

Abstract
Objective: A previous study showed that schizophrenia is accompanied by lowered levels of trace/metal elements including cesium. There are no data whether changes in cesium, rubidium and rhenium are associated with activated immune-inflammatory pathways, cognitive impairments, and the symptomatology of schizophrenia.

Methods: This study measured cesium, rubidium, and rhenium, cognitive impairments (using the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia) and the cytokines/chemokines interleukin (IL)-1β, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, and CCL11 (eotaxin) in 120 schizophrenia patients and 54 healthy controls. Severity of illness was assessed using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), the Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Rating (FF) Scale and the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D).

Results: Serum cesium was significantly lower in schizophrenia patients as compared with controls. Serum cesium was significantly and inversely associated with CCL11 and TNF-α, but not IL-1β. Moreover, there were significant inverse associations between serum cesium levels and the BPRS, FF, HAM-D and SANS scores and positive correlations between cesium and neurocognitive probe results including the Tower of London, Symbol Coding, Controlled Word Association, Category Instances, Digit Sequencing Task, and List Learning tests.

Conclusion: The results suggest that lowered serum cesium levels may play a role in the pathophysiology of SCZ, specific symptom domains including negative, depressive and fatigue symptoms, neurocognitive impairments (spatial working, episodic and semantic memory and executive functions) and neuro-immune pathways as well.

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202002.0175/v1

 

[rvallee]

This is the first I've seen that fatigue, whatever is actually meant by this here, is significant in schizophrenia. Which wouldn't be surprising, we see the same of being significant in MS and RA with little recognition from researchers and clinicians, but is it actually the case here or just someone's attempt at finding correlations?

Prior similar research in RA: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12011-018-1497-5

A considerable attention has been focused on the possible association between ultra-trace elements (UTEs) status and pathogenesis of many diseases including rheumatoid arthritis (RA). UTEs have important roles in numerous metabolic processes. Serum Cs, Rb, and Re levels in RA are not studied previously. The correlation of serum Cs, Rb, and Re levels with the well-known serological parameters, anticyclic citrullinated protein antibody (ACPA), C-reactive protein (CRP), ESR, and rheumatoid factor (RF) is also not studied previously. The present study aimed to measure the level and the correlation between serum UTEs with various blood tests results in RA patients. Serum Cs, Rb, Re, ACPA, CRP, RF, and ESR were measured in Iraqi RA patients who have a positive ACPA (ACPA > 25 U/ml) and compared with healthy individuals. There were significant elevations (p < 0.05) in serum levels of all the measured parameters as compared with those of the healthy control group except Rb and uric acid which have not been changed. Subgrouping of patients according to the results of CRP and RF leads to different results. In the low-CRP group, the high-RF subgroup showed an elevation of ACPA, Cs, and ESR in comparison with the low-RF patients. In the high-CRP group, the patients with high RF showed an increase in the levels of Cs, Rb, ESR, and ACPA. The patient group with high RF and high CRP showed more significant correlations between serum UTEs and serological tests. Serum levels of UTEs were significantly altered in RA patients. The variations in the serum levels of the measured parameters in RA need more investigation to explore the possible association between these UTEs and RA. RA subgroups, according to the results of CRP and CPA, produce more and various information than taking RA as a whole group in the estimation of UTEs.