Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T07:24:21.906Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Relationship of Environmental Temperature to the Incidence and Outcome of Schizophrenia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Sunjai Gupta  and
Robin M. Murray
Sunjai Gupta*
Affiliation:
Department of Epidemiology and Population Sciences, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT
Robin M. Murray
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, and Department of Psychological Medicine, King's College Hospital, London
*
∗Correspondence
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper presents new analyses of data from two multicentre studies carried out by the WHO. The morbid risk of developing schizophrenia, as broadly defined by the Determinants of Outcome Study, was positively related to the mean daily range of temperature. The outcome of schizophrenia, as determined by the International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia, was found to be positively related to mean environmental temperature. Further studies are needed to examine the relationship of geographical and climatic variables to schizophrenia in order to complement what is already known about the role of sociocultural factors.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 160 , Issue 6 , June 1992 , pp. 788 - 792
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Böök, J. A. (1953) A genetic and neuropsychiatric investigation of a north Swedish population. Acta Genetica et Statistica Medico, 4, 1–100.Google Scholar
Bradford Hill, A. (1965) The environment and disease: association or causation? Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 58, 295–300.Google Scholar
Carney, P. A., Fitzgerald, C. T. & Monaghan, C. E. (1988) The influence of climate on the prevalence of mania. British Journal of Psychiatry, 152, 820–823.Google Scholar
Cooper, J. & Sartorius, N. (1977) Cultural and temporal variations in schizophrenia: a speculation on the importance of industrialisation. British Journal of Psychiatry, 130, 50–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crow, T. J. (1987a) The dopamine hypothesis survives but there must be a way ahead. British Journal of Psychiatry, 151, 460–465.Google Scholar
Crow, T. J. (1987b) Mutation and psychosis: a suggested explanation of seasonality of birth. Psychological Medicine, 17, 821–828.Google Scholar
Davey, M. L. & Reid, D. (1972) Relationship of air temperature to outbreaks of influenza. British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine, 26, 28–32.Google Scholar
Day, R., Neilsen, J. A., Korten, A., et al (1987) Stressful life events preceding the acute onset of schizophrenia: a cross-national study from the World Health Organisation. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 11, 123–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglass, A. B. & Toogood, R. W. (1987) Temperature regulation and dopamine in schizophrenia. Biological Psychiatry, 22, 1048–1050.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Falloon, I., Watt, D. C., Lubbe, K., et al (1978) N-acetyl-p-amino-phenol (paracetamol acetaminophen) in the treatment of acute schizophrenia. Psychological Medicine, 8, 495–499.Google Scholar
Freeman, H. L. (ed.) (1985) Mental Health and the Environment. London: Churchill Livingstone.Google Scholar
Freeman, H. L. (1988) The environment. British Journal of Psychiatry, 153, 579–582.Google Scholar
Gupta, S. (1991) Cross-national differences in the incidence and outcome of schizophrenia (abstract). Psychiatric Bulletin (suppl. 4), 13.Google Scholar
Hare, E. & Moran, P. (1981) A relation between seasonal temperature and the birth rate of schizophrenic patients. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 63, 396–405.Google Scholar
Heh, C. W., Herrera, J., DeMet, E., et al (1988) Neuroleptic-induced hypothermia associated with amelioration of psychosis in schizophrenia. Neuropsychopharmacology, 1, 149–156.Google Scholar
Huxley, J., Mayr, E., Osmond, H., et al (1964) Schizophrenia as a genetic morphism. Nature, 204, 220–221.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jablensky, A. (1987) Multicultural studies and the nature of schizophrenia: a review. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 80, 162–167.Google Scholar
Kendell, R. E. & Adams, W. (1991) Unexplained fluctuations in the risk for schizophrenia by month and year of birth. British Journal of Psychiatry, 158, 758–763.Google Scholar
Kilbourne, E. D. (1987) Influenza. New York: Plenum Medical.Google Scholar
Lee, T. F., Mora, F. & Myers, R. D. (1985) Dopamine and thermoregulation: an evaluation with special reference to dopaminergic pathways. Neurosciences Behaviour Review, 9, 589–598.Google Scholar
Leff, J. (1988) Psychiatry Around the Globe. A Transcultural View. London: Gaskell.Google Scholar
Leff, J. (1990) The ‘new cross-cultural psychiatry’. A case of the baby and the bathwater. British Journal of Psychiatry, 156, 305–307.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leff, J., Wig, N. N., Ghosh, A., et al (1987) Expressed emotion and schizophrenia in North India. III. Influence of relatives' expressed emotion on the course of schizophrenia in Chandigarh. British Journal of Psychiatry, 151, 166–173.Google Scholar
Leff, J., Wig, N. N., Bedi, H., et al (1990) Relatives' expressed emotion and the course of schizophrenia in Chandigarh. A two-year follow-up of a first-contact sample. British Journal of Psychiatry, 156, 351–356.Google Scholar
Lin, K. & Kleinman, A. M. (1988) Psychopathology and clinical course of schizophrenia: a cross-cultural perspective. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 14, 555–567.Google Scholar
Lipton, J. M. & Clark, W. G. (1986) Neurotransmitters in temperature control. Annual Review of Physiology, 48, 613–623.Google Scholar
Littlewood, R. (1990) From categories to contexts: a decade of the ‘new cross-cultural psychiatry’. British Journal of Psychiatry, 156, 308–327.Google Scholar
McDonald, C. & Param, C. (1985) Body temperatures in psychiatric disorders. Biological Psychiatry, 20, 817.Google Scholar
McKenna, P. J. (1987) Pathology, phenomenology and the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 151, 288–301.Google Scholar
Morgan, R. & Cheadle, A. J. (1976) Circadian body temperature in chronic schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 129, 350–354.Google Scholar
Morgenstern, H. (1982) Uses of ecologic analysis in epidemiologic research. American Journal of Public Health, 72, 1336–1344.Google Scholar
Murphy, H. B. M. (1982) Comparative Psychiatry: The International and Intercultural Distribution of Mental Illness. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Murphy, H. B. M. & Raman, A. C. (1971) The chronicity of schizophrenia in indigenous tropical peoples: results of a twelve-year follow-up study in Mauritius. British Journal of Psychiatry, 118, 489–497.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Murray, R. M., Kerwin, R. W. & Nimgaonkar, V. L. (1988) What have we learned about the biology of schizophrenia? In Recent Advances in Clinical Psychiatry, vol. 6 (ed. Granville-Grossman, K.), pp. 161–183. London: Churchill Livingstone.Google Scholar
O'Callaghan, E., Sham, P., Takei, N., et al (1991) Schizophrenia after prenatal exposure to 1957 A2 influenza epidemic. Lancet, 337, 1248–1250.Google Scholar
Parker, G. (1979) Early exogenous determinants of psychiatric illness: maternal hyperthermia. In Geigy Psychiatric Symposium (ed. Kiloh, L. G.), pp. 25–27.Google Scholar
Pearce, E. A. & Smith, C. G. (1984) The World Weather Guide. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Potkin, S. G., Zetin, M., Stamenkovic, V., et al (1986) Seasonal affective disorder: prevalence varies with latitude and climate. Clinical Neuropharmacology, 9 (suppl. 4), 181–183.Google Scholar
Rose, G. (1966) Cold weather and ischaemic heart disease. British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine, 20, 97–100.Google Scholar
Sartorius, N., Jablensky, A., Korten, A., et al (1986) Early manifestations and first-contact incidence of schizophrenia in different cultures. A preliminary report on the initial evaluation phase of the WHO Collaborative Study on Determinants of Outcome of Severe Mental Disorders. Psychological Medicine, 16, 909–928.Google Scholar
Sartorius, N., Jablensky, A., Ernberg, G., et al (1987) Course of schizophrenia in different countries: some results of a WHO international comparative 5–year follow-up study. In In Search for the Causes of Schizophrenia (ed. Hafner, H.). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Torrey, E. F. (1980) Schizophrenia and Civilisation. New York: Aronson.Google Scholar
Torrey, E. F. (1987) Prevalence studies in schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 598–608.Google Scholar
Warner, R. (1985) Recovery from Schizophrenia: Psychiatry and Political Economy. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Weihe, W. H. (1979) Climate, health and disease. Proceedings of the World Climate Conference. Geneva: Secretariat of the World Meteorological Organisation.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (1979) Schizophrenia: An International Follow-up Study. Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Yamawaki, S., Lai, H. & Horita, A. (1983) Dopaminergic and serotonergic mechanisms of thermoregulation: mediation of thermal effects of apomorphine and dopamine. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, 227, 383–388.Google Scholar
Yehuda, S. (1977) Hypothermic effects of antipsychotic phenothiazines. In The Impact of Biology on Modern Psychiatry (eds Gershon, E. S., Belmaker, R. H., Kety, S. S., et al), pp. 137–148. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Yehuda, S. (1979) Indirect evidence for a feedback loop mechanism between two central dopaminergic pathways: preliminary results. Communications in Psychopharmacology, 3, 115–119.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.