Schizophrenia 'risk genes' aren't so risky if mother's pregnancy was healthy

Schizophrenia 'risk genes' aren't so risky if mother's pregnancy was healthy

Schizophrenia ‘risk genes’ are not so risky if the mother’s pregnancy was healthy

By SHARON BEGLEY @sxbegle

MAY 28, 2018

Far be it from us to tell 23andMe how to run its business, but if it or any other DNA company wants to give customers a better read of disease risk, they might start asking how mom’s pregnancy went.

That’s the key message of a schizophrenia study, published Monday, which showed that 108 regions of the genome previously identified as raising the risk of schizophrenia do so only slightly if the mother experiences no complications during pregnancy — but by some twelvefold if she does.

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