Vitamin D Deficiency Raises Schizophrenia Risk, Middle East has lowest Vid D levels worldwide.

Vitamin D Deficiency Raises Schizophrenia Risk, Middle East has lowest Vid D levels worldwide.(Fars).

Vitamin D-deficient individuals are twice as likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia as people who have sufficient levels of the vitamin, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium and is needed for bone and muscle health. The skin naturally produces this vitamin after exposure to sunlight. People also obtain smaller amounts of the vitamin through foods, such as milk fortified with vitamin D. More than 1 billion people worldwide are estimated to have deficient levels of vitamin D due to limited sunshine exposure.

Schizophrenia is a mental illness with symptoms that can include delusions and hallucinations. Since schizophrenia is more prevalent in high latitudes and cold climates, researchers have theorized vitamin D may be connected to the disorder.

"This is the first comprehensive meta-analysis to study the relationship between the two conditions," said one of the study's authors, Ahmad Esmaillzadeh, PhD, of the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in Isfahan, Iran. "When we examined the findings of several observational studies on vitamin D and schizophrenia, we found people with schizophrenia have lower vitamin D levels than healthy people. Vitamin D deficiency is quite common among people with schizophrenia."

The researchers reviewed the findings of 19 observational studies that assessed the link between vitamin D and schizophrenia. Combined, the studies looked at vitamin D levels and the mental health of 2,804 adult participants. The studies used blood tests to determine each participant's vitamin D levels.

The meta-analysis found that people with schizophrenia had significantly lower levels of vitamin D in the blood compared to the control groups. The average difference in vitamin D levels between schizophrenic patients and control participants was -5.91 ng/ml. People with vitamin D deficiency were 2.16 times more likely to have schizophrenia than those with sufficient vitamin D in their bloodstreams. In addition, 65 percent of the participants who had schizophrenia also were vitamin D deficient.

"There is a growing trend in the nutrition science field to consider vitamin D and its relationship to conditions such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease and depression," Esmaillzadeh said. "Our findings support the theory that vitamin D may have a significant impact on psychiatric health. More research is needed to determine how the growing problem of vitamin D deficiency may be affecting our overall health."

Despite the abundance of sunshine in the Middle East allowing vitamin D synthesis all year round, the region registers some of the lowest levels of vitamin D and the highest rates of hypovitaminosis D worldwide. This major public health problem affects individuals across all life stages, especially pregnant women, neonates, infants, children and the elderly. Furthermore, while rickets is almost eradicated from developed countries, it is still reported in several Middle East countries. These observations can be explained by limited sun exposure due to cultural practices (Full Cover), dark skin color, and very hot climate in several countries in the gulf area, along with prolonged breast feeding without vitamin D supplementation, limited outdoor activities, obesity, and lack of government regulation for vitamin D fortification of food, in several if not in all countries.Hmmmm......Only exception in the Middle East.....you guessed it Israel.

'I am the devil': Former classmate reveals school gunman Adam Lanza had 'online devil worshiping page.'

'I am the devil': Former classmate reveals school gunman Adam Lanza had 'online devil worshiping page.' (DM).HT: LittleBytesNews.The Sandy Hook gunman worshiped the devil and had an online page dedicated to Satan, a former classmate revealed, as his childhood barber recalls Adam Lanza never spoke and would stare at the floor every time he had his hair cut.
Lanza's worshiping page had the word 'Devil' written in red, Gothic-style letters against a black background, Trevor L. Todd told The National Enquirer, something which he said was 'weird' and 'gave him the chills'.
The FBI are trying to piece together his smashed up hard drive to see if his online footprint will reveal any motive for the killing, but they strongly believe he made use of devil-worshiping and suicide sites and boasted of his murder plans on message forums.
Adam Lanza's childhood barber Bob Skuba revealed today that Nancy Lanza stopped bringing her son in for haircuts a few years ago so he thought he had moved away from the area.
It also emerged today that the chief medical examiner in the massacre is enlisting the help of a geneticist to see if they can find a biological motive behind why the 'troubled genius' shot dead 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday.
Dr H. Wayne Carver says he wants to know if there is any identifiable disease associated with the behavior of the shooter, especially as Asperger's syndrome - which Adam is thought to have suffered from - is not associated with violent behavior.
'I’m exploring with the department of genetics what might be possible, if anything is possible,' Dr Carver said. 'Is there any identifiable disease associated with this behavior?'
He is also awaiting toxicology results. Lanza's mental state is vital as to why he may have committed one of the worst mass shootings in American history.
Another working theory is that he was angry that his mother was planning to commit him to a psychiatric facility because he was becoming too difficult for her to handle alone.
Given his decision to kill his mother Nancy while she lay sleeping in her bed at their Connecticut home and then drive to his former elementary school to purposefully kill innocent children, there had to be a strong connection in his mind between his anger and the school.
Nancy, 52, was thought to volunteer at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and so the theory extends to the fact that Adam felt he loved those children more than she loved him, since she was planning to send him away.Hmmmm.....Guns were not to blame, this 'person' should never have been around ANY WEAPON! Read the full story here.

Muslim screaming "Allahu akbar" on Continental flight tried killing people with his car the day before.

Muslim screaming "Allahu akbar" on Continental flight tried killing people with his car the day before.(JW).--The man who repeatedly yelled “Allah is great” as he was removed yesterday from a plane that was forced to make an emergency landing due to his unruly behavior is a 19-year-old Saudi Arabian who was arrested Sunday night after he led Oregon police on a drunken car chase that saw him ram two cop cars and attempt to run over pedestrians, The Smoking Gun has learned. According to investigators, Yazeed Mohammed Abunayyan was smoking an electronic cigarette on a Continental Airlines flight traveling from Portland to Houston. When a flight attendant directed Abunayyan to stop smoking (or relinquish the device), he refused and began “yelling profanities and swinging his fist at the flight attendant,” according to an indictment filed this afternoon in U.S. District Court in Portland.Abunayyan, also hit or attempted to hit other passengers and was “speaking or singing about Usama bin Laden and his hatred of women,” the indictment charges. Abunayyan, who reportedly has been in the U.S. visiting relatives, was charged with a felony count of interfering with flight crew members.Male passengers on the Boeing 737 helped a flight attendant subdue Abunayyan, who was removed from the plane in plastic handcuffs and turned over to FBI agents. The Continental flight returned to Portland 20 minutes after departure.Abunayyan, who is scheduled to appear later this afternoon before a federal magistrate, was arrested Sunday evening by cops after a wild car chase in Medford, an Oregon city 275 miles south of Portland.Police reported that the intoxicated teenager led them on a 20-minute chase that ended after his Ford sedan got stuck on a dirt embankment. During the chase, Abunayyan was spotted driving in circles, attempting to run over pedestrians, and driving the wrong way on a street. He also rammed two patrol cars."It was like ‘Grand Theft Auto',” a witness told a local newspaper.Abunayyan was booked late Sunday into the Jackson County jail on a variety of charges, including driving under the influence of intoxicants, assault on a police officer, criminal mischief, hit and run, and reckless endangerment.He was freed from custody Monday around 6 PM after posting $65,000 bond. Which allowed him, a day later, to board Flight 1118, albeit briefly. A man who was just freed on a $65,000 bond should not have been allowed to board any flight.More: Saudi teen pleads not guilty to disrupting US flight, support for Bin Laden.(BM).A lawyer for 19-year-old Yazeed Mohammed A. Abunayyan told a judge his client suffers from “unspecified mental illness” that requires care at the Multnomah County Detention Center.US Magistrate Court Judge Janice Stewart ordered Abunayyan held in jail as a flight risk and set a trial date of April 24, saying she believes Abunayyan’s mental health issues will be dealt with “in due course.”According to court records, an attendant aboard a Continental Airlines flight to Houston on Tuesday asked Abunayyan to stop smoking an electronic cigarette, but he refused. He’s also accused of yelling profanities and throwing punches at the flight attendant and several passengers. Authorities say Abunayyan also was “singing or speaking about” Osama bin Laden and his hatred of women.“When they asked him to stop the cigarette … he just went crazy, I couldn’t stop him,” Abunayyan’s cousin Fahad Alsubaie told the Medford Mail Tribune.Alsubaie told the paper that Abunayyan suffers from schizophrenia and hadn’t taken his medication for about three weeks.Hmmmmm.....Surely there are a lot of 'mentally ill' Admirers of Osama Bin Laden around, is this contagious?If so how does it spread?Read the full story here.