Cross-sectional study of diet patterns in early and chronic schizophrenia.
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Letter to the Editor One of the most complex comorbidities to treat in schizophrenia is obesity and overweight. This multifactorial condition is estimated to affect over 60% of the patients and is linked to a shorter lifespan. Genetic, developmental, psychopathological, and pharmacological factors associated with obesity have been extensively described in the context of schizophrenia. Some external factors have also been attributed to contribute to weight gain in the disorder. However, diet, which has modifiable characteristics and is probably the major external con-tributor to obesity, has gained less attention in the field of biology and treatment in schizo-phrenia. The literature on nutrition in the early phases of the illness is relatively scarce and often inconclusive (Williamson et al., 2015). Diet in chronic schizophrenia has been more consistently described and highlights a diet rich in carbohydrates and saturated fat, and poor in fruit and fibre (Bobes et al., 2007; Heald et al., 2015; Nunes et al., 2014). However, there are no studies, to our knowledge, that have directly compared diet habits between patients in the early and chronic phases of the illness in the same population. This type of information would be valuable to assess the progress of obesity and the main factors responsible for it in schizophrenia.
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1573-2509