Blood Bath

A cure for schizophrenia ?

What is the cause of schizophrenia? That question has long stirred passionate debate among doctors. The most common of major mental disorders, schizophrenia is in fact not the Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde split personality of myth but a whole family of illnesses characterized by such distressing symptoms as delusions, disordered reasoning, hallucinations, withdrawal and other bizarre behavior. In his classic studies, the Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing has argued, almost poetically, that schizophrenia is only a reaction to the insanity around us--of parents, family and even society at large. Humbug, reply more orthodox physicians, who say that schizophrenia is most probably a result of a flaw in body chemistry.

Last week the argument was tilted sharply in favor of this organic explanation of the disease. At the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Anaheim, Calif., two California scientists reported that they had isolated a chemical from the blood of schizophrenics that may be at the root of their illness. Drs. Frank Ervin of U.C.L.A.'s Neuropsychiatric Institute and Roberta Palmour of the University of California at Berkeley described the substance as a variant of a peptide--a short chain of amino acids--that belongs to a family of newly discovered opiate-like brain hormones called endorphins.

Ervin and Palmour emphasize that they have no firm proof that the molecule, which they have dubbed leu-endorphin, is the cause of--or even related to--schizophrenia. But if it is, its removal offers possible treatment for the illness, which accounts for nearly 20% of the mental patients in U.S. hospitals.

The California researchers isolated the peptide from material filtered from the blood of schizophrenic patients who had undergone hemodialysis--blood purification by kidney machine. Of ten patients studied, seven showed such a pronounced remission of their symptoms that they were able to leave the hospital for the first time in years. In fact, dialysis seems so promising that a dozen clinics are now planning to begin using it in experimental treatment of schizophrenics.

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