It's Fair to Describe Schizophrenia as Probably Mostly Genetic

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/its-fair-to-describe-schizophrenia

by feross • 2 years ago

24 21 2 years ago

whoswho• 2 years ago

I keep seeing Astral Codex Ten posted here for a variety of topics, including science, politics and others. There is a tone of authority to a lot of the writing. I have to ask, what are these person’s qualifications? Are they employed and directly involved across all these subjects they cover?

justrealist2• 2 years ago

It's Scott Alexander of SSC. He's a clinical psychiatrist so he's extremely qualified on this one.

On other topics he is well-informed and thoughtful but speaks with less authority.

UniverseHacker2• 2 years ago

As a long time reader, I don't feel like he asserts things from a tone of authority, but usually makes self contained well reasoned arguments, and cites his sources.

He is a practicing clinical psychiatrist, and also knows a lot about AI, but I find him to be hilariously naive and almost always wrong when he talks about relationships, sex, or social dynamics- almost like an alien trying to understand humans with no firsthand experience.

Overall, I would also say he is an extremely intelligent person, which probably means his ideas are more likely to be correct, but also that he 'overpowers' readers into believing his perspective. Even when wrong, his arguments have an unusual amount of complexity and nuance, and an unusual amount of time and effort spent reasoning and arguing them, which is likely to compel readers to blindly accept them.

ausbah• 2 years ago

your comment seems like a very good summary of the rationalist / lesswrong / effective altruist crowd in general

cma• 2 years ago

I believe he's in the past talked about how he donated to a charity that pays mentally ill homeless to be sterilized, so the post might have justification motivations as well.

arbitrage• 2 years ago

This article mentions nothing about twins being affected asymmetrically by schizophrenia. Any model of the disease needs to account for that.

Also, this gem: "You also can’t point to any individual lung cancer patient and say “smoking caused this person’s lung cancer”."

Article loses all credibility at that point. Lol.

justrealist2• 2 years ago

He covered this exhaustively in the previous post https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/some-unintuitive-properties...

Please actually read before snarking.

oooyay• 2 years ago

I used to giggle at lines like this too, but then I got into woodworking. Woodworking has roughly the same risk profile for lung disease, and roughly the same amount of people that don't or won't wear aspirators (effectively close to the percentage of people that smoke). The result? A relatively slim portion of people actually get lung disease from inhaling wood dust (not even treated, just general raw lumber dust).

The trick? We have no way to tell if you'll be susceptible. Most of this analogues to smoking. Not everyone (or even most) who smokes, or even smokes for a lifetime will get lung disease. That said, good luck predicting who will and won't.

tux3• 2 years ago

"You also can’t point to any individual lung cancer patient and say “smoking caused this person’s lung cancer”."
Article loses all credibility at that point. Lol.

I don't think the people with lung cancer secondary to silicosis will see the humor. You should explain the joke.

kbelder• 2 years ago

Also, this gem: "You also can’t point to any individual lung cancer patient and say “smoking caused this person’s lung cancer”."

But that's absolutely correct.

dekhn• 2 years ago

Not all people who smoke get lung cancer, lung cancer happens to non-smokers, and most of the evidence is in the form of statistical associations. Merely "proving smoking causes lung cancer" (rather than just association) was a major challenge, and strictly speaking, what he said is factually correct.

peterfirefly2• 2 years ago

Upvoted for your first sentence. I wish I could split your comment in two and downvote the rest of it: the "gem", as you ironically call it, is absolutely correct.

tcj_phx• 2 years ago

The friend I've written about here before has been occasionally labeled as 'schizophrenic' by the psychiatrists forced on her. The psychiatrists try to treat her psychosis with antipsychotics. In 2018 she figured out for herself that she has the genetic condition of being a poor methylator. The practical implication of this is that she can't turn the provitamin folic acid (used to fortify food) into the usable form of Vitamin B9.

In the real world her psychosis is caused by substance abuse problems. She makes herself psychotic trying to self-treat her Vitamin B9 deficiency with alcohol and other substances.

My friend told me how adding L-Methylfolate to her routine was like flipping a switch from 'depressed' to 'not-depressed'. But the psychiatrists don't care... https://twitter.com/JamesKnochel/status/1595562184867971072

The notes on the lab test for folate/folic acid says folate deficiency is associated with chronic alcoholism: https://twitter.com/JamesKnochel/status/1595562191050375168 (I note the lab test seems to not be able to tell the difference between the provitamin folic acid and the useful vitamin.)

In 2022 Psychiatrist Chris Palmer published his book Brain Energy, which shares his discovery of the 70+ years of research establishing that "mental disorders" (schizophrenia, et al) are caused by metabolic problems.

https://brainenergy.com/ / https://books.google.com/books?id=FoxlEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT233&dq=B... (link to section about Science's actually findings about substance abuse)

Whether or not "schizophrenia" is actually genetic, the correct treatments for the psychosis of schizophrenia are pro-metabolic therapies, not tranquilizers.

bradleyishungry• 2 years ago

this is a dangerous comment, schizophrenia is not something that just gets better with diet

mjburgess• 2 years ago

Unfortunately the last 20% of your comment is nonsense. Yes, I have no doubt that there are rare cases of serious nutritional deficiencies that can trigger mental health episodes. No, schizophrenia is not nutritional -- researchers arent, on mass, just not looking at 95% of blood results out of some strange desire to issue lithium.

UniverseHacker2• 2 years ago

Technically I think the "brain energy" hypothesis is probably correct from a mechanistic perspective... in fact virtually all diseases can be seen from a lens of metabolic energy not flowing into the correct systems that would be able to restore normal function- even communicable diseases are technically treatable by getting enough energy into the right immune response.

That said, it's more of a theoretical framework that could lead to developing treatments in the long term future... we don't have treatments now that can carefully manipulate and restore metabolic function to the right areas for treating most illnesses. If it were as simple as you (and others) are implying, one could basically treat all mental illness successfully with thyroid hormones. That probably does work for some people, but if it were broadly effective, it would be more obvious.

The idea that things are genetic, metabolic in nature, and/or treatable with nutrients and diet are not in any way mutually exclusive. All conditions involve an interaction between genetics and environment. Presumably, many genetic diseases could be mitigated or prevented in theory with a properly engineered/controlled environment, if we had enough understanding of how to do so.

rybosworld• 2 years ago

Diet plays a role in almost everything.

But you're saying that schizophrenia, or it's associated symptoms, can be "cured" with folate supplementation?

I don't think you really believe that, at least not wholly. And if you do, well I'll give you some unsolicited advice: don't rant about this at your family's next thanksgiving.

peterfirefly2• 2 years ago

She makes herself psychotic trying to self-treat her Vitamin B9 deficiency with alcohol and other substances.

Normal people don't become psychotic because they drink.

PaulHoule• 2 years ago

It's more important than people think because the genetic liability to schizophrenia is connected to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizotypy

that maybe the gene for schizotypy + environmental stress makes you schizophrenic or if you have 8 schizogenes you are schizotype but 15 makes you schizophrenic. Either way for every schizophrenic person there are many more schizotypes, this condition is almost never diagnosed but I think can be resposible for this syndrome

https://www.amazon.com/Loners-Life-Path-Unusual-Children/dp/...

and it can cause troubles relating to people, with executive function, etc. I'm pretty sure a lot of self-diagnosed "autists" and "ADHD" cases really have this common mainly genetic condition. See also

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizotypal_personality_disord...

nonrandomstring• 2 years ago

I could not see the point of this article. It seemed like an elaborate argument against nuance and multiple complex causation. Very regressive.

jongalt1962• 2 years ago

It's neither fair, nor accurate. While genetics can be a minor factor, all mental health issues are primarily caused by metabolic problems. See Dr. Chris Palmer's book Brain Energy (2022) and/or Dr. Georgia Ede's new book (2024). It's amazing what eating a proper human diet can do for your health.

It's Fair to Describe Schizophrenia as Probably Mostly Genetic

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