Patients with schizophrenia experience osteoporosis at rates far exceeding the general population, yet clinicians have lacked genetic explanations for this apparent relationship. Researchers headed by a team at Tianjin Medical University General Hospital have now uncovered striking molecular connections between schizophrenia and bone health, identifying 195 shared genetic loci that may explain why psychiatric patients have an elevated risk of osteoporosis. Feng Liu, PhD, and colleagues analyzed data from the largest genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of schizophrenia, and six different osteoporosis-related phenotypes (including osteoporosis and five bone mineral density (BMD)-related phenotypes), including more than half a million individuals. The results suggest that these two seemingly unrelated conditions may have overlapping biological pathways at the molecular level. The findings carry immediate clinical relevance. With 1,376 protein-coding genes mapped to shared risk regions, researchers now possess a molecular roadmap that could inform future preventive strategies for vulnerable psychiatric patients. Liu and colleagues reported on their findings in Genomic Psychiatry, in a paper titled “Shared genetic architecture between schizophrenia and osteoporosis revealed by multilevel genomic analyses,” concluding that their findings “… provide integrative evidence of genetic overlap between schizophrenia and osteoporosis, highlighting common etiological mechanisms bridging neuropsychiatric and skeletal health, with potential implications for early prevention.” Schizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric disorder that is characterized by delusions, hallucinations, and cognitive impairment, and affects approximately 1% of the population worldwide. Evidence suggests that schizophrenia is also associated with a broad spectrum of disorders outside of its psychiatric manifestations, the team continued. “Among these, osteoporosis…
