Mental illness associated with increased death from cardiovascular disease

According to a new study published in PLOS Medicine, people with severe mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, have higher cardiovascular mortality rates than the general population. The new study included a meta-analysis of 108 previous studies with over 30 million participants aged 16 to 65 at the onset of psychiatric disorder.

Overall, the study found that the cardiovascular-related mortality rate for people with severe mental illness is about twice that of the general population. People with schizophrenia are at greater risk than those with bipolar disorder, but the disparity exists across all severe mental illness types and cerebrovascular and cardiac mortality.

For people with schizophrenia, the pooled hazard ratio/rate ratio for coronary heart disease was 1.8 compared to controls, and the pooled standardised mortality ratio for cerebrovascular accidents was 1.93. For both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, the association with cardiovascular-related mortality grew stronger between the 1970s and the 2000s. For instance, the hazard ratio/rate ratio for mortality from coronary heart disease in people with schizophrenia in the 1990s compared with the 1980s was 1.61.