Overview
- An Edinburgh-led team analyzed Finnish healthcare registers covering more than 56,000 adolescents attending mental health services who had been prescribed antibiotics.
- Those treated with doxycycline in adolescence were 30–35% less likely to develop schizophrenia in adulthood than peers given other antibiotics.
- Sensitivity checks indicated the association was unlikely to be explained solely by acne treatment or other unmeasured differences between groups.
- Authors hypothesized potential biological pathways including anti-inflammatory effects and influences on synaptic pruning in brain development.
- The study, involving collaborators in Oulu and Dublin and funded by the Health Research Board, appears in the American Journal of Psychiatry and does not support clinical use at this stage.