Mental Illness Lowers Life Expectancy More than Heavy Smoking

Sharon Moore May 23, 2014

Scientists from Oxford University found that serious mental illnesses can reduce life expectancy by 10-20 years, which is equivalent to or worse than that for heavy smoking.

Yet mental health has not seen the same public health priority, say the Oxford scientists, despite these stark figures and the similar prevalence of mental health problems.

The researchers say the figures should galvanise governments and health and social services to put a much higher priority on how mental health services can prevent early deaths.

In the current study, the scientists searched for the best systematic reviews of clinical studies which reported mortality risk for a whole range of diagnoses – mental health problems, substance and alcohol abuse, dementia, autistic spectrum disorders, learning disability and childhood behavioural disorders. 20 review papers were identified, including over 1.7 million individuals and over 250,000 deaths.

They repeated searches for studies and reviews reporting life expectancy and risk of dying by suicide, and compared the results to the best data for heavy smoking.

The average reduction in life expectancy in people with bipolar disorder is between 9 and 20 years, it’s 10-20 years for schizophrenia, between 9 and 24 years for drug and alcohol abuse, and around 7-11 years for recurrent depression.

1 in 4 people in the UK will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year, it is estimated. Around 21% of British men and 19% of women smoke cigarettes.

’We found that many mental health diagnoses are associated with a drop in life expectancy as great as that associated with smoking 20 or more cigarettes a day.’ Dr Seena Fazel of the Department of Psychiatry at Oxford University said.

’Many causes of mental health problems also have physical consequences and mental illness worsen the prognosis of a range of physical illnesses, especially heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Unfortunately, people with serious mental illnesses may not access healthcare effectively,’ says Dr Fazel.

’What we do need is for researchers, care providers and governments to make mental health a much higher priority for research and innovation. Smoking is recognised as a huge public health problem. There are effective ways to target smoking, and with political will and funding, rates of smoking-related deaths have started to decline. We now need a similar effort in mental health.’ he added.

Source of this article:

Moderate Obesity Takes Years Off Life Expectancy