Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder – How Linked are They?

The largest study ever to track bipolar disorder and schizophrenia within families offers evidence that the two psychiatric disorders share a common genetic cause.

The psychiatric community has long debated whether or not schizophrenia and bipolar are related..and if they are, how interconnected were they? Are they two distinct disorders or not?

Many bipolar patients have symptoms that are characteristic of schizophrenia. Scientists wanted to know: Where is the line between bipolar and schizophrenia?

Studies show that there is central genetic cause for both conditions.  However, past familial studies have not come to this same conclusion.

Researchers in Sweden have now linked a national health registry to hospital discharge records to try to find out what kind of commonalities exist. The data reaches from 1973 – 2004 and includes 9 million Swedish residents from 2 million families.  The data was analyzed to determine that risk for both disorders among biological and non- related family members.

In this study, there were 36,000 people with schizophrenia and 40,500 people with bipolar disorder.

The analysis revealed that:

• First-degree relatives (parents, siblings, or offspring) of people with either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder were at increased risk for both of these conditions.
• If a sibling had schizophrenia, full siblings were nine times more likely than the general population to have schizophrenia and four times more likely to have bipolar disorder.
• If a sibling had bipolar disorder, they were eight times more likely to have bipolar disorder and four times more likely to have schizophrenia.
• Half siblings who shared the same mother were 3.6 times more likely to have schizophrenia if their half sibling had schizophrenia and 4.5 times more likely to have bipolar disorder if their half sibling had bipolar disorder. Half siblings who shared the same father had a 2.7-fold increase in schizophrenia risk and a 2.4-fold increase in bipolar disorder.
• Adopted children with a biological parent with one of the disorders had a significant increase in risk for the other.

The findings appear in the Jan. 17 issue of the journal The Lancet.

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