Purines in the Urine of Normal and Schizophrenic Subjects

Abstract

Although there have been many attempts to discover in the body fluids, chemical peculiarities characteristic of schizophrenic illness, the outcome of most of these investigations has been inconclusive (see for example Altschule, 1953; Kety, 1959). Little attention has been paid, however, to purine metabolism until the recent studies of Kishimoto (1958) who reported peculiarities in the absorption spectra of body fluids in schizophrenia which he attributed to abnormalities in the conversion of adenine through hypoxanthine and xanthine to uric acid. These findings appeared to be supported by evidence which included the determination of urinary xanthine by a xanthine oxidase method based on that of Williams (1950).