What are the common Risk Factors of Schizophrenia Disease?
Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder which many interpret as a reality abnormally. In most cases, the disease results in a combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behaviors that impairs individual daily functioning. The disease has different symptoms in children and adults. However, the risk factors of schizophrenia remain the same both in children and adults.
Researchers do not understand the exact cause of schizophrenia, but attribute the following are some of the risk factors of getting the disease.
Family history and genetics
Schizophrenia is associated with genes, and this explains why there is a strong connection between family members passing the disease from one generation to another. The evidence of a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia is overwhelming, and this explains why a parent or family history of the people with the disease can pass it to the next generation.
Environment
Certain environmental factors are attributed to the cause of schizophrenia. Key among these factors include exposure to viruses that cause the disease. There are different variety of virus traits that causes the disease. Most of these viruses attack the brain cells, and when this takes place, the brain can no longer function normally. A good example of such a virus is herpes simplex virus and cytomegalovirus.
Exposure to Toxins
According to different studies conducted on the disease, exposure to harmful toxins increases the likelihood of an individual developing schizophrenia disease. Harmful toxins that have influence in the body can cause the disease as early as during fetal development. This explains why mothers are advised against being exposed to lead or heavy drinking of alcohol when they are expectant.
References
Cattane, N., Richetto, J., & Cattaneo, A. (2018). Prenatal exposure to environmental insults and enhanced risk of developing Schizophrenia and Autism Spectrum Disorder: focus on biological pathways and epigenetic mechanisms. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.