Mental Health News
Researchers at the University of Birmingham confirmed the link between mental health and heart disease. The study is published in the journal PLOS Medicine.
The Study
The researchers systematically reviewed meta-analyses of 108 previously conducted studies of over 30 million people, aged 16–65 years, who belonged to high-income countries. All the participants had psychiatric disorders (like schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, etc.) and morbidity risk factors related to smoking, obesity, etc. Paradigms like severity of mental disorders, cerebrovascular accidents, coronary heart diseases, etc. were examined.
The Findings
The results showed that people with severe mental illness face the risks of cerebrovascular and cardiac mortality two times more than the general population without psychiatric disorders. However, disparity exists across all types of mental illness and cardiovascular diseases. For instance, people with schizophrenia are at a greater risk of cardiovascular morbidity than those with bipolar disorders.
The researchers also noted that the link between heart disease and mental health had strengthened in the recent decades, particularly in the 1990s and 2000s. In the words of one of the lead researchers, Amanda Lambert, “the changes since the 1990s approximately coincide with the release of newer, second-generation antipsychotics which are known to have worse metabolic effects.”
To Know More You May Refer To
Lambert, A. M., Parretti, H. M., Pearce, E., Price, M. J., Riley, M., Ryan, R., Tyldesley-Marshall, N., Avşar, T. S., Matthewman, G., Lee, A., Ahmed, K., Odland, M. L., Correll, C. U., Solmi, M., & Marshall, T. (2022). Temporal trends in associations between severe mental illness and risk of cardiovascular disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS medicine, 19(4), e1003960. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003960