Lactate levels in the brain and blood of schizophrenia patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Systematic review and meta-analysis of observational case-control studies
PubMed 38086110 · doi:10.1016/j.schres.2023.11.013
What was done
Systematic review and meta-analysis searching MEDLINE, Cochrane, and Embase for English-language studies evaluating lactate levels in the brain and blood of schizophrenia patients compared to healthy controls. A total of 20 studies were included: 13 studies on brain lactate levels (322 schizophrenia patients and 324 healthy controls) and 7 studies on blood lactate levels (234 schizophrenia patients and 238 healthy controls).
What was found
Brain lactate levels were elevated in schizophrenia patients compared to healthy controls in both in vivo and post-mortem studies. Blood lactate levels showed no statistically significant difference between schizophrenia patients and controls. The abstract does not report numerical effect sizes, confidence intervals, or p-values.
Why it matters
The findings suggest abnormal brain energy metabolism in schizophrenia that is not reflected in peripheral blood, pointing to distinct central regulatory mechanisms.
Limits
The abstract provides no exact numerical values, effect sizes, variance estimates, or measures of study heterogeneity. The sample size is modest across included studies, and the underlying evidence consists of observational case-control and post-mortem designs where confounding factors such as medication and illness duration were not described in the abstract.
Cited by
- supports Lactate and GDF15 levels tend to be elevated in individuals with mental illness.