People born during a famine in China have an increased risk for schizophrenia, consistent with previous research suggesting a link between fetal nutritional deficiency and schizophrenia, according to an article in the August 3 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Schizophrenia is distributed worldwide with a lifetime risk of approximately 1 percent. Many researchers feel that schizophrenia is a neurodevelopmental disorder with environmental influences during early brain development contributing to risk of schizophrenia.

A previous study found that there was twice the risk of schizophrenia among children conceived during a food shortage in Holland in 1944-1945. However, the number of cases in this study was small, and the findings were only modestly statistically significant.

David St. Clair, M.D., Ph.D., of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, and colleagues conducted a study to test the hypothesis that prenatal exposure to famine would increase the rate of schizophrenia in adult life by examining people who lived through a massive famine in China from 1959-1961. The risk of schizophrenia was examined in one of the most affected provinces.

Rates were compared among Chinese adults born before, during, and after the famine years. All psychiatric case records for the years 1971 through 2001 were examined, and clinical and sociodemographic information on patients with schizophrenia was extracted by researchers.

Birth rates (per 1,000) in the famine region decreased approximately 80 percent during the famine years, from 28.28 in 1958 and 20.97 in 1959 to 8.61 in 1960 and 11.06 in 1961. Among births that occurred during the famine years, the risk of developing schizophrenia in later life increased from 0.84 percent in 1959 to 2.15 percent in 1960 and 1.81 percent in 1961. The death-adjusted risk was 2.3 times higher for those born in 1960 and 1.9 times higher for those born in 1961.

“Our study strongly supports the view that prenatal exposure to famine increases the risk of schizophrenia in later life. Using a much larger sample size with clear evidence of exposure, our findings are internally consistent and almost exactly replicate the Dutch findings. Since the two populations are ethnically and culturally distinct, the processes involved may apply in all populations undergoing famine,” the authors concluded.