Photo Credit: Danijela Maksimovic
The following is a summary of “Evaluating the causal relationship of Levo-carnitine and risk of schizophrenia: a bidirectional two-sample mendelian randomization study,” published in the October 2024 issue of Psychiatry by Qiu et al.
Schizophrenia, a severe mental disorder impacting approximately 1% of the global population, is associated with significant cognitive impairments and a hereditary component, with studies indicating a potential link between Levo-carnitine deficiency and the disorder’s pathology.
Researchers conducted a prospective study to investigate the causal relationship between different subtypes of Levo-carnitine and susceptibility to schizophrenia using Mendelian randomization analysis.
They performed a forward Mendelian randomization analysis using Levo-carnitine and its derivatives as exposures and schizophrenia as the outcome, sourcing candidate data from the Open-GWAS database. Instrumental variables were identified as single nucleotide polymorphisms linked to the exposure, and analyses utilized inverse variance weighting as the primary method, followed by sensitivity assessments. A reverse Mendelian randomization analysis was also conducted using the same procedures.
The results showed a significant negative causal relationship between isovaleryl-levo-carnitine and schizophrenia (P < 0.05), with no significant associations found in other groups (P > 0.05). The reverse Mendelian randomization analysis did not identify any causal relationship between schizophrenia and Levo-carnitine-related exposures (P > 0.05). Sensitivity analyses, including pleiotropy and heterogeneity analysis, did not indicate any potential bias in the Mendelian randomization results (P > 0.05).
Investigators concluded that elevated levels of isovaleryl-levo-carnitine may help reduce the risk of developing schizophrenia, emphasizing its potential therapeutic and preventive roles in clinical management.
Source: bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-024-06177-1#Abs1
