Lower vitamin C levels are associated with less improvement in negative symptoms in initially antipsychotic-naïve patients with first-episode psychosis. Int J Neuropsychopharmacol. 2022 May 9;pyac029. doi: 10.1093/ijnp/pyac029.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35532335/
Abstract
Low levels of vitamin C have been observed in patients with schizophrenia and psychosis, and vitamin C may affect the dopaminergic system. Likewise, antipsychotic medication modulates striatal dopamine D2 receptors. We measured vitamin C levels in 52 patients with first episode psychoses (24 females, age 23.1 ±5.2 years) and 57 matched healthy controls (20 females, age 22.7 ±4.3 years) before and after 6 weeks where patients received aripiprazole monotherapy (mean dose 10.4 mg ±4.8 mg). At baseline, patients displayed lower levels of vitamin C (57.4 ±25.9 µM) than controls (72.7 ±21.4 µM) (t=3.4, p=0.001). Baseline symptoms and vitamin C levels were not correlated. Higher baseline vitamin C levels were associated with more improvement in negative symptoms (n=39, R 2=0.20, F=8.2, p=0.007) but not with age, sex or p-aripiprazole. Since negative symptoms are generally considered challenging to alleviate, a potential adjunctive effect of vitamin C on treatment response should be tested in future randomized clinical trials.
Keywords: Vitamin C; first episode psychoses; negative symptoms.