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Schizophrenia Dementia Risk: Diabetes, Head Injury, Substance Use

Photoreal illustration of an aging brain with cardiovascular and lifestyle risk imagery, conveying preventable dementia drivers in schizophrenia.

Patients with schizophrenia have substantially elevated dementia risk compared to the general population — roughly 2-3 times the age-adjusted rate — but the specific drivers within the schizophrenia population have been less well characterized. A 2026 case-control study by Ho et al. used population-based data to identify which factors specifically elevate dementia risk among schizophrenia …

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Can Lifestyle Factors Modify Risk of Psychiatric Disorders? (2024 Study)

Psychiatric disorders have increasingly become a significant public health concern, affecting a growing number of people globally. A study in focus utilized MR (Mendelian randomization), a method that leverages genetic data to explore causal relationships, to analyze the impact of 45 lifestyle factors on 13 psychiatric disorders. This extensive research involved GWAS summary statistics from …

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Genetics of Tobacco Use Disorder (TUD) & Nicotine Addiction (2024 Study)

Tobacco use is a complex behavior influenced by both environmental factors and genetic predispositions. A recent study leveraging the UCLA ATLAS biobank explored the genetic underpinnings of Tobacco Use Disorder (TUD) and its systemic health effects using a Polygenic Score (PGS). Highlights: Genetic Underpinnings of Tobacco Use: The study used a European ancestry-derived PGS to …

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