Toimela J S, Halt A H, Kerkelä M, Kampman O, Suvisaari J, Kieseppä T, Lähteenvuo M, Tiihonen J, Ahola-Olli A, Veijola J, Holm M
Research Unit of Clinical Medicine, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 5000, FI-90014 Oulu, Finland.
Department of Psychiatry, Oulu University Hospital, FI-90220 Oulu, Finland.
Schizophr Res Cogn. 2024 May 9;37:100316. doi: 10.1016/j.scog.2024.100316. eCollection 2024 Sep.
Both overweight and cognitive deficits are common among people with schizophrenia (SZ) and schizoaffective disorder. The results in earlier studies have been inconsistent on whether overweight is associated with cognitive deficits in psychotic disorders.
Our aim in this study was to detect possible associations between obesity and cognitive deficits among study participants with SZ and schizoaffective disorder.
The study sample included 5382 participants with a clinical diagnosis of SZ or schizoaffective disorder selected from the Finnish SUPER study. Obesity was measured both with body-mass index and waist circumference. The cognitive performance was evaluated with two tests from the Cambridge automated neuropsychological test battery: Reaction time was evaluated with the 5-choice serial reaction time task. Visual memory was evaluated with the paired associative learning test. The final analysis included a total sample of 4498 participants applicable for the analysis of the reaction time and 3967 participants for the analysis of the visual memory.
Obesity measured with body-mass index was associated with better performance in reaction time task among both female and male participants. Among male participants, overweight was associated with better performance in the visual memory test. The waist circumference was not associated with cognitive measures.
The results suggest that obesity in people with SZ or schizoaffective disorder might not be associated with cognitive deficits but instead with better cognitive performance. The results were opposite from earlier literature on the general population. More research is required to better understand whether the results might be partly caused by the differences in the etiology of obesity between the general population and people with SZ.
超重和认知缺陷在精神分裂症（SZ）和分裂情感性障碍患者中都很常见。早期研究关于超重是否与精神障碍中的认知缺陷相关的结果并不一致。
本研究的目的是检测SZ和分裂情感性障碍研究参与者中肥胖与认知缺陷之间可能存在的关联。
研究样本包括从芬兰超级研究中选取的5382名临床诊断为SZ或分裂情感性障碍的参与者。通过体重指数和腰围来衡量肥胖。使用剑桥自动神经心理测试电池中的两项测试评估认知表现：通过5选串行反应时任务评估反应时间。通过配对联想学习测试评估视觉记忆。最终分析包括适用于反应时间分析的4498名参与者的总样本以及适用于视觉记忆分析的3967名参与者。
用体重指数衡量的肥胖与女性和男性参与者在反应时任务中的更好表现相关。在男性参与者中，超重与视觉记忆测试中的更好表现相关。腰围与认知指标无关。
结果表明，SZ或分裂情感性障碍患者的肥胖可能与认知缺陷无关，反而与更好的认知表现相关。这些结果与关于普通人群的早期文献相反。需要更多研究来更好地理解这些结果是否可能部分是由普通人群和SZ患者之间肥胖病因的差异导致的。
