Research Reveals Probiotics and Vitamin D Combination Improves Mental Health in Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that shows symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions. This disorder affects a person’s mental health and usually develops during young adulthood. Schizophrenic people can’t think usually and isolate themselves. Researchers have been continuously questioning whether gut microbes’ imbalance and vitamin D deficiency are linked to the risk of schizophrenia.   

In recent research published in Neuropsychopharmacology Reports, researchers have revealed that taking probiotics and vitamin D supplements together can improve cognitive functions in Schizophrenic people. In this research, 70 Schizophrenic people were involved, but only 69 people completed it. Researchers randomly divided these participants into two groups such as the probiotic-supplement group (intervention group), consisting of 35 people who were asked to take a combination of probiotics and vitamin D supplements (400 IU), and the placebo group, consisting of 35 people who were asked to take a placebo. Participants took assigned medications for 12 weeks.   

The primary outcomes of this research were the severity of this disorder and cognitive function, which were evaluated by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) tests, respectively. On the other hand, the secondary outcomes of this research consisted of body mass index (BMI), lipid profile, gastrointestinal (GI) problems, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and serum C-reactive protein (CRP).   

When researchers observed and studied the collected data, they found that the MoCA score increased by 1.96 units in the probiotic-supplement group compared to the placebo group. They also found that the number of patients with normal MoCA scores (26 or more) increased in the probiotic-supplement group. However, the PANSS scores were the same for both groups.   

The author of this study says that probiotics can be used effectively to treat mental disorders by regulating gut microbes. The results of this study show that taking probiotics and vitamin D supplements together can help improve cognitive function in schizophrenic people. Even though the PANSS scores were the same for both groups, there was a rise in the number of people with normal MoCA scores.  

Healthcare professionals will be able to use these findings to treat schizophrenic people to improve their cognitive functions. The combination of probiotics and vitamin D supplements can be the best strategy to treat schizophrenic people as it targets the microbiota-gut-brain axis and enhances mental health.   

Reference Link:  

Co-administration of probiotics and vitamin D significantly improves cognitive function in schizophrenic patients: A double-blinded Randomized controlled trial, Neuropsychopharmacology Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1002/npr2.12431