Santokba Durlabhji Memorial Hospital, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India.
Indian J Psychiatry. 2012 Jul;54(3):244-7. doi: 10.4103/0019-5545.102424.
Anxiety and depression form commonest stress-induced psychiatric disorders. To combat the biochemical changes which occur as a result of stress, there is antioxidant defence in the biological system. Secondary defence is by the nonenzymatic antioxidants like vitamins E (alphatocopherol), C (ascorbic acid), and β-carotene. Therefore, the authors interest was aroused to examine the status of these antioxidants in the biological system of patients suffering from stress-induced psychiatric disorders.
This study was carried out to find out whether patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and depression have any difference in blood serum levels of vitamins A (β-carotene), C, and E in comparison to the normal healthy control group and whether supplementation of adequate doses of vitamins A (β-carotene), C, and E leads to improvement in anxiety and depression and reduction in scores of the patients.
Eighty subjects in the age group of 20-60 years, who attended a psychiatric clinic of a private hospital and who met inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study and consented for psychological evaluation and blood screening to find out the serum levels of vitamins A, C, and E, were included in the study. Approval was sought from the institutional ethics committee for collecting the blood sample of these subjects before and after vitamins A, C, and E supplements given for a period of 6 weeks.
It was observed that patients with GAD and depression had significantly lower levels of vitamins A, C, and E in comparison to healthy controls. After dietary supplementation of these vitamins for a period of 6 weeks, a significant reduction in anxiety and depression scores of patients was observed (P<0.001). A significant increase in the blood levels of antioxidants was observed in patients (P<0.05) except that of vitamin E in the group of depressed patients.
The findings suggest that antioxidant supplement therapy as an adjuvant therapy is useful in patients with stress-induced psychiatric disorders and the results have been discussed.
焦虑和抑郁是最常见的应激相关精神障碍。为了对抗应激引起的生化变化，生物系统中存在抗氧化防御。二级防御是由非酶抗氧化剂如维生素 E（α-生育酚）、C（抗坏血酸）和β-胡萝卜素。因此，作者有兴趣研究应激引起的精神障碍患者的生物系统中这些抗氧化剂的状况。
本研究旨在探讨广泛性焦虑症 (GAD) 和抑郁症患者的血清维生素 A（β-胡萝卜素）、C 和 E 水平是否与正常健康对照组存在差异，以及补充足够剂量的维生素 A（β-胡萝卜素）、C 和 E 是否会改善焦虑和抑郁症状，降低患者评分。
将 80 名年龄在 20-60 岁之间的受试者纳入研究，他们在一家私立医院的精神科就诊，符合纳入和排除标准，并同意接受心理评估和血液筛查，以确定血清维生素 A、C 和 E 的水平。研究前征得机构伦理委员会的同意，收集这些受试者的血液样本，并在补充维生素 A、C 和 E 6 周后再次收集样本。
结果发现，GAD 和抑郁症患者的维生素 A、C 和 E 水平明显低于健康对照组。在补充这些维生素 6 周后，患者的焦虑和抑郁评分显著降低（P<0.001）。观察到患者的抗氧化剂血水平显著升高（P<0.05），除了抑郁组的维生素 E 外。
这些发现表明，抗氧化补充治疗作为辅助治疗对应激引起的精神障碍患者有效，结果已进行了讨论。
