Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Contra Skolnick On Schizophrenia Microbes


Listen Later

Stephen Skolnick is a gut microbiome expert blogging at Eat Shit And Prosper. His most recent post argues that contra the psychiatric consensus, schizophrenia isn't genetic at all - it's caused by a gut microbe. He argues:

  1. Scientists think schizophrenia is genetic because it obviously runs in families
  2. But the twin concordance rates are pretty low - if your identical twin has schizophrenia, there's only about a 30%-40% chance that you get it too. Is that really what we would expect from a genetic disease?
  3. Also, scientists have looked for schizophrenia genes, and can only find about 1-2% as many as they were expecting.
  4. So maybe we should ask how a disease can run in families without being genetic. Gut microbiota provide an answer: most people "catch" their gut microbiome from their parents.
  5. Studies find that schizophrenics have very high levels of a gut bacterium called Ruminococcus gnavus.
  6. This bacterium secretes psychoactive chemicals. Constant exposure to these chemicals might be the cause of schizophrenia.

I disagree with all of this. Going in order:

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/contra-skolnick-on-schizophrenia

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Astral Codex Ten PodcastBy Jeremiah

  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8

4.8

126 ratings


More shows like Astral Codex Ten Podcast

View all
Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

26,336 Listeners

Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Conversations with Tyler

2,451 Listeners

Robert Wright's Nonzero by Nonzero

Robert Wright's Nonzero

592 Listeners

ChinaTalk by Jordan Schneider

ChinaTalk

287 Listeners

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

4,181 Listeners

ManifoldOne by Steve Hsu

ManifoldOne

95 Listeners

The Realignment by The Realignment

The Realignment

2,436 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

517 Listeners

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg by Spencer Greenberg

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

137 Listeners

Razib Khan's Unsupervised Learning by Razib Khan

Razib Khan's Unsupervised Learning

209 Listeners

"Econ 102" with Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg by Turpentine

"Econ 102" with Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg

151 Listeners

Risky Business with Nate Silver and Maria Konnikova by Pushkin Industries

Risky Business with Nate Silver and Maria Konnikova

298 Listeners

Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11) by Patrick McKenzie

Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11)

134 Listeners

The Marginal Revolution Podcast by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

The Marginal Revolution Podcast

95 Listeners

Statecraft by Santi Ruiz

Statecraft

35 Listeners