Many mental illnesses are as bad for you as smoking, with life expectancy for people with mental health problems less than that for heavy smokers, experts have found.
Serious mental illness can reduce a person’s life expectancy by 10 to 20 years, when the average reduction in life expectancy for heavy smokers is eight to 10, according to researchers from Oxford University.
They said mental health has not been the same public health priority as smoking.
The study, published in the journal World Psychiatry, analysed previous research on mortality risk for a whole range of problems — mental health issues, drug and alcohol abuse, dementia, autistic spectrum disorders, learning disability, and childhood behavioural disorders.
The authors examined 20 papers looking at 1.7m people and over 250,000 deaths.
They found the average reduction in life expectancy for people with bipolar disorder was between nine and 20 years, it was 10 to 20 years for schizophrenia, between nine and 24 years for drug and alcohol abuse, and around seven to 11 years for recurrent depression.
Source: Ella Pickover, Irish Examiner, 23/05/14
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