The use of antioxidant medicine as an adjunctive therapy in late-onset schizophrenia spectrum disorders

BACKGROUND. Imbalance in the activity of neurotransmitter systems, mitochondrial impairment, and oxidative stress are potential neurobiological factors in the schizophrenia development.

AIM. To test the hypothesis about the possibility of a subgroup selection from patients with late-onset schizophrenia spectrum disorders, for which the use of ethylmethylhydroxypyridine succinate as an adjunctive to antipsychotic therapy would be the most effective in relation to symptoms that are relatively more pronounced in patients of this subgroup.

MATERIAL AND METHODS. 43 patients (women and men) aged 45–78 years with late-onset (after 40 years) schizophrenia spectrum disorders were examined using clinical psychopathological, psychometric, biochemical and statistical research methods. Enzymatic activities of cytochrome C-oxidase, glutamate dehydrogenase, glutathione reductase and glutathione-S-transferase were assessed in blood cells twice (on a patient admission to the hospital and after a 28-day treatment course).

RESULTS. Criteria for a patient assignment to the subgroup for ethylmethylhydroxypyridine succinate prescription were: more prominent side effects of pharmacotherapy, predominance of anxiety-hypochondriac symptoms and a lesser severity of psychosis. Before the treatment starting, the subgroup to which ethylmethylhydroxypyridine succinate was prescribed significantly differed in the activity of platelet glutamate dehydrogenase (p=0.031), glutathione-S-transferase (p=0.005), and erythrocyte glutathione reductase (p=0.045). As a result of the treatment course, the severity of symptoms by which the patients receiving ethylmethylhydroxypyridine succinate significantly differed before the starting the treatment, became undistinguished from those in the rest examined patients. After the treatment course, no significant differences in enzymatic activities were found in patients treated with ethylmethylhydroxypyridine succinate from those in other patients.

CONCLUSION. This study confirmed the clinical validity of using a medicine with antioxidant properties as an adjunctive therapy to the main treatment in the selected subgroup of patients.