Preventing Psychosis

Yes, I know, it has been a minute, but I swear, I have a good reason... but we're ignoring all that and getting straight to the news!

There were two articles mentioned on ScienceDaily yesterday pertaining to things that cause psychosis and violence in children. Both articles were published in the British Journal of Psychiatry. In one study, 6,356 12-year-olds were looked at. All of the children were tested/interviewed for psychosis (hallucination or delusions). About 11 % of the children were found to have symptoms, most of which had mothers that smoked during pregnancy. The children with the highest levels of psychosis were born to mothers who smoked heavily. There was also a correlation found between women who drank alcohol within the first 21 weeks of pregnancy and psychosis. There was no relation at all to women who claimed to have smoked cannibis. You can read the published article here. It is an open access article.

In the second study, 17,500 people were studied since 1970. Data was taken at 5, 100, and 34 years of age. The purpose of the study was to determine if sweets affected adult behavior. By age 34, some of the people were considered violent. Of these people, almost 70% were given some sort of confection or chocolate everyday as a kid. This link was present even after other factors were removed. Here's what researchers had to say:

"Our favoured explanation is that giving children sweets and chocolate regularly may stop them learning how to wait to obtain something they want. Not being able to defer gratification may push them towards more impulsive behaviour, which is strongly associated with delinquency."

In otherwords, be kind to your body while pregnant and don't spoil your kids. It could be bad for them later in life!