Is schizophrenia inherited or not always a concern and worry for many people, especially in cases where a family member is suffering from this disease. There are even many people who are worried about their illness that they are afraid of giving birth, fearing that the children born will not be healthy.
Genetics is the most common risk factor for schizophrenia.
Is schizophrenia hereditary?
Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that can appear at any time, even in some cases, with onset at a very young age and persisting throughout life. People with this disease will have wrong, incorrect, inappropriate thoughts and the people around them are completely unable to explain to them what is right and what is wrong.
In addition, the patient also has some strange and unusual activities due to the influence of paranoia and poor emotions. They will tend to withdraw, or avoid people around, less communicate, talk to others, even close people. The patient gradually becomes contemplative, or lounging, anxious, bewildered, afraid or in many cases, severe delusions appear.
Being able to understand and understand the disease will help you gradually answer the question of whether schizophrenia is hereditary. Accordingly, some research results of scientists have found a link between schizophrenia and genetic factors. Based on actual surveys, about 4/5 cases of schizophrenia stem from genetics.
Accordingly, scientists at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark collected information from the National Twin Registry of Denmark and the Danish Psychiatric Research Agency and selected 31,524 couples. twins were born between 1951 and 2000. Based on that, scientists began to study and identify the schizophrenic gene that the child inherited during conception as a result of several environmental factors.
In many scientific studies, certain genes have been found to cause schizophrenia.
Comparing the traits of genes found in parallel pairs can provide a clear indication of schizophrenia, whether it’s a symptom of the disease or something else. environment while the child is still developing. Although the theory is like that, in terms of biology, this is also a rather difficult issue and requires more factors and evidence to draw reliable conclusions.
However, finding the number of twins eligible to participate in the study is also a big challenge for scientists. Also because less than 5/1000 individuals are affected by this disease and there is not too much data to collect. That’s why the statistics from the Danish National Twin Registry turned out to be a great deal for research.
Around 1998, researchers in Finland also started a similar study by taking small genetic samples from the Finnish Population Registry. The results found that there was an 83% chance that schizophrenia was caused by genetics.
In 2007 another analysis was carried out in Sweden and found the gene most likely to cause schizophrenia, 67% female and 41% male. The researchers estimate that genes account for a 79 percent chance of schizophrenia, but as the study expands, that number drops to about 73 percent.
“This study is the most comprehensive and thorough estimate of the heritability of schizophrenia and its diagnostic diversity.” “It’s exciting because it shows that the genetic risk of the disease seems to be of almost equal importance across the schizophrenia spectrum.” – According to the share of researcher Rikke Hilker of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
However, genes are not the sole determinant of whether schizophrenia is inherited, but rather a contributing factor to risk. Very rare cases of disease onset because of a single gene, it must be a combination of many different genes and environmental factors, epigenetics (some genetic factors are outside the gene, contributing to the disease). part that determines how the body responds to environmental influences).
In fact, it is not possible to say with 100% certainty whether schizophrenia is inherited in newly born babies. It can only be found that if a family member has the disease, the child is born at a higher risk of developing the disease than normal. Eg:
- If there is no infected person in the family: 1%
- Father or mother: 6%
- Both parents: 45%
- Identical twins: 40% to 50%
- Siblings of fraternal twins: 17%.
- Other siblings: 9%.
- Aunts, uncles, uncles, grandparents, also known as second-level relatives: the rate is 3%.
A number of environmental factors can contribute to genetic variation that leads to the inheritance of schizophrenia, such as:
Negative experiences in the school environment, such as being violent, being isolated from friends, shunned, etc.
Mental shocks have happened in the past, especially in childhood, such as being abused, sexually assaulted, kidnapped, lost loved ones, broken marital relationships, etc.
Abuse of stimulants and addictive substances such as tobacco, alcohol, and drugs at a young age or even as an adult.
How to prevent genetic schizophrenia?
As shared above, genetics is a likely factor in the onset of schizophrenia, but it is not definitive. In fact, there are still many cases where the parents have the disease, but the children born can still develop well and have normal health. Therefore, instead of worrying about whether schizophrenia is inherited, learn to apply preventive measures to help reduce the incidence of future children.
Parents with schizophrenia should visit their doctor and consult with their doctor before deciding to have children.
1. Special care during pregnancy
Pregnancy health plays a very important role in the development of each child. Therefore, even pregnant women with schizophrenia or with normal health need to pay attention and be careful to ensure the safety of both mother and child. To reduce the incidence of schizophrenia in the fetus, pregnant women should:
- Build a healthy and scientific diet, supplement with foods rich in vitamins, minerals and especially folic acid.
- Priority should be given to choosing and using clean, clear-sourced foods.
- Always keep an optimistic, happy spirit, avoid negative thoughts, prolonged stress before, during and after giving birth.
- To ensure the quality of sleep, it is necessary to practice the habit of sleeping early before 23 o’clock, avoiding staying up too late.
- Do not continuously use broadcasting devices such as phones, computers, etc.
- Do not use drugs indiscriminately, when you want to use any drug or functional food, you need to carefully consult a doctor, expert to ensure safety.
- Limit living in an unhealthy environment, too much exposure to toxic substances.
- Pregnant mothers should let their children listen to music during pregnancy and talk to them often to help nurture their souls and create a bond with their families.
2. Raising children in the first years of life
The first years of life are an extremely important period for parents to raise and help their children develop best. At this time, parents should not abuse too much electronic devices to serve the purpose of entertainment and entertainment of their children. It is best to direct your child to healthy physical activities and ensure good sleep.
Also because, electronic devices such as televisions, phones, ipads, computers have sounds and lights that stimulate the brain of young children, making them more likely to become hyperactive, aggressive and violent. . Even not carefully selecting information to expose children to bad content can lead to the risk of developing negative behaviors in children.
Spend more time playing with your child, avoid letting them become lonely or be abused at school. Besides, according to research, paints or paints also contain some heavy metals that can cause poisoning in young children. Therefore, parents should also avoid letting their children have too much contact with these items.
Besides, each parent should also have a specific plan for appropriate parenting. Although it is necessary to be tough in education, it still needs to be soft, patient and especially positive in the use of words towards children. Parents should give their children praise and encouragement when their children do good things and also guide them to strictly follow the set discipline and rules. If you have no experience with this, you can find information through books, take some parenting courses or learn from the experiences of those who have gone before.
3. Adjust the lifestyle of your child and family members
In addition to genetic factors that increase the risk of schizophrenia, most people have a chance of developing the condition without the need for a gene. Therefore, we need to know how to take care of ourselves and our families to be able to prevent this disease well. Especially when relatives have a history of disease, other members have to pay more attention to adjusting their own lifestyle.
- Enhance spiritual life by showing affection, sharing more with close people, actively participating in group activities, avoiding prolonged mental pressure. Besides, you can also nourish your soul with meditation and yoga exercises.
- Diet also plays an important role in a person’s physical and mental health. The brain needs to be nourished with many different nutrients to function effectively. You need to build and balance minerals and vitamins in your daily diet, increase your intake of green vegetables, fresh fruits and vegetables to protect your health.
- Regular exercise habits also bring a lot of benefits. It helps to increase resistance, strengthen immunity. It also improves mood, increases sleep quality, regulates heart rate, and prevents disease. As long as you exercise at least 5 days a week, about 30 minutes each time is enough to help you get a good health.
- Sleep also needs to be ensured and maintained because poor sleep quality will cause a lot of negative effects on both mental and physical health. Depending on the age of each baby, the amount of sleep during the day will be different. As for adults, it is necessary to maintain enough sleep from 7 to 8 hours a day.
- Trying to learn a new skill is also one of the ways to increase your confidence and make more connections with the people around you. If you feel that life is too boring, you can try signing up for classes in cooking, dancing, singing, etc. As for young children, you can give them a chance to learn. Participate in healthy activities, sign up for gifted classes or simply have some experience sessions for children to have more new experiences and this is also a way to improve mental health.
- Absolutely do not abuse stimulants, addictive substances such as alcohol, tobacco, drugs, etc. Because this is one of the factors that have a great contribution to the formation of mental diseases, in which have schizophrenia.
4. Consult a specialist
Although schizophrenia is not a genetic disease, if there is a family member who has had this disease, the chances of the remaining members of the disease will also be higher than usual. For couples with schizophrenia and intending to have children, it is best to see a specialist doctor for specific examination and advice.
Arbitrary pregnancy at the wrong time can also increase the risk of disease or cause many dangerous consequences for your baby. According to the doctor’s advice, women should only become pregnant when the disease is completely cured and is currently in a stable mental stage, no longer using medication.
Thus, it can be answered that schizophrenia is not inherited and genetic is only a factor that can increase the risk of the disease. If someone in your family has this disease, you can still reduce the risk for other members by building a healthy and scientific lifestyle.
