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Mental Illness Reduces Lifespan As Much as Smoking
That smoking is bad for your health is a commonplace; cancer, lung disease, and other possible consequences can all shorten smokers' lifespans. A new meta study from researchers at Oxford concludes that mental illness is just as big a factor in shortening lives, and not only because depression is a contributing factor to suicide.
From the story at NPR: "We know that smoking boosts the risk of cancer and heart disease, says Dr. Seena Fazel, a psychiatrist at Oxford University who led the study. But aside from the obvious fact that people with mental illnesses are more likely to commit suicide, it's not clear how mental disorders could be causing early deaths. The researchers looked at data on 1.7 million patients, drawing from 20 recent scientific reviews and studies from mostly wealthy countries. Comparing the effects of mental illness and smoking helps put the stats in context, Fazel tells Shots. 'It was useful to benchmark against something that has a very high mortality rate.'" [Press release from Oxford.]
Perhaps the reduced life expectancy is comparable to that caused by high-stress lifestyles. If I was paranoid or socially ostracised, as the mentally ill commonly are, I'd be stressed too.
I can nail this one: Mentally ill people generally don't take good care of themselves. They tend to eat worse and more irregularly, sleep odd hours, and not get to the doctor as much (for whatever reason), especially if they live by themselves and no one's looking after them.
Basically, the severely mentally ill tend to make poor lifestyle choices a lot more.
In addition to the poor choices associated with irrationality ... remember that these are diseases of the brain. Complex syndromes that have effects beyond behavior and thinking. For example, depression is associated with pain.
Some interesting reading: Peter Kramer's Against Depression.
...mental health patients tend to be serious smokers too, self-medicating. Anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, major depression, to name a few. (Source: was married to a psych nurse)
This is a positively idiotic statement.
The mentally ill are over-represented in homeless, impoverished, drug-using (self-medicating), and other highly at-risk populations. Even with a support network, they are often unable to assist in their own care, and symptoms they describe may be attributed to excessively attributed to psychosomatic rather than physical causes. They often refuse medical care, either blanket refusal, or may specifically refuse to take one medication, or follow one bit of doctor's advice. They usually have difficulty retaining a doctor, and bounce between them, probably to progressively less-capable ones.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Doctors have done studies for years confirming that smoking tends to moderate SOME symptoms of schizophrenia. How rain on your wedding day is that?
Since the most recent Diagnostics and Statistical Manual of Psychiatry says that essentially all of us are mentally ill, WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHGGGHHHH!!!
Seriously, this shouldn't be a surprise. Mental illness can include and/or lead to anorexia, compulsive overeating, apathy and depression leading to sedentary lifestyle, suicide, dangerous risk taking behavior, homelessness, poor nutrition, drug abuse including excessive smoking and drinking, and taking lots of prescribed medications.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
There are no pandas allowed on Slashdort and this article has been reported to the frog queen. Shoes must be LISP.
For a (content-) Free Internet?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
If the name doesn't ring a bell to younger Western audiences (and not to be confused with an Asian supermarket chain, apparently), it is now part of Glaxo-SmithKline (GSK):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
Citation?
I doubt that.
http://www.webmd.com/mental-he...
There are probably reasons but it will not be as obvious as that. Some of these countries have real reasons to be depressed or suffer anxiety disorders and yet score low in a survey by the WHO. Japan for instance has numbers so low the research said it is unbelievable and it is highly capitalist.
Yet another thing to be depressed about...
http://www.cchrflorida.org/blo... ,for one
Why do people insist on studying, helping, fixing the mentally ill or the drug abusers? What about those who are "healthy" but run into unfortunate events (car crash, cancer, getting laid off)? If we're going to treat society as a single organism, wouldn't we want to give to the most capable rather than the least? Where is this constant need to fix people coming from?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
It's called acute lead poisoning.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
As I understand it, heavy smokers lose ~13.4 years and not 8-10 as the article quotes. Is the shorter life span due to the side-effects of medication?
If it acquires resources on instantiation like a duck, then its a shared_ptr<Duck>
Poor health can contribute to or directly relate to mental illness. Some in the study probably suffered from other illness but were not diagnosed. It must be just fraction of the measurement but it might be an important one.
I don't believe it's possible to assign cause/effect with such studies. The headline should read "Mental illness assoicated with reduced lifespan"
I have OCD and Hypochondria and it is badly affecting my life. But slowly and steadily I am getting out of it. Never went for any medication. No one even knows about it except my family.
Diagnosed mentally ill people tend to get psychopharmaceutic medication, stuff that kidneys and liver have a hard time dealing with intentionally since it needs to accumulate and thus maintain a somewhat constant level in the bloodstream.
So how many of those deaths are attributable to liver or renal failure?
Medications Commonly Prescribed For Mental Illness Reduce Lifespans As Much as Smoking
Psychoneuroimmunology. (Yeah, it's a long one.)
Ezekiel 23:20
Wow, anecdotal evidence. You do realize that not all mentally ill people are being medicated, because there's plenty of conditions for which there is no medication?
Ezekiel 23:20
This isn't anything new . Also people with epilepsy have it particularly bad
Therefore, you have to be mentally ill to work in IT! :-)
Reading the actual paper I thought: "Wow. Should have been dead by now".
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Another attempt by the Criminal Democratic Party to justify stealing money. It won't work. Anyone still believing the leftist ideas is beyond help.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
but it is the lesser of two evils when compared to a healthy person.
That may be true on a statistical level however I personally know 4 people (plus their immediate family members) who lives were turned upside down by a combination of Zoloft (anti-stress) mixed with regular, but not excessive, alcohol consumption (anti-inhibitor). One of them (a 60yr old male with no police record) ended up in jail for attacking some cops, another (40yo male) was arrested and thrown into the local lock-up for threatening neighbours and the police who turned up to investigate.
The problem (from this layman's POV) is that unintentional abuse is easy and GP's hand out behaviour modifying pills like jelly beans. Humans needs some stress to function in a human society, take away the bodily symptoms of stress (adrenalin rush, etc) and you have basically removed the person "social filter". Lying, cheating, etc, no longer makes their heart beat a little faster so their brain is left wondering what "everybody else's" problem is, and why are they are suddenly being "picked on" by everybody. Whatever selfish bullshit pops into their head (ie: old fashioned "temptation") is simply acted upon without guilt. In other words a human's "moral compass" does not (and cannot) operate normally without stress. OTOH, I have known (or known of) many more than 4 people where such drugs have worked as advertised but mostly because their loved ones were on watch for behaviour changes and they read the warnings about mixing them with alcohol.
Stress is normal, panic attacks are not. There's a huge difference between the two that is quite often ignored by GP's in a ten minute consultation. Chronic panic attacks can almost always be traced back to a traumatic experience or more commonly an abusive and erratic parent.
Disclaimer: My ex-wife was treated with zoloft in the late 90's for life long panic attacks brought about by her soiciopathic (and incestuoes) father, she was the proverbial "swan" - plenty of social graces but peddling like crazy under the water. She was on the pills for about 3yrs, the change in personality did not happen overnight, it was subtle and gradual, or at least it was too subtle for me to connect it with the pills. However I can tell people from experience that when it gets to the point where your partner of 20yrs starts lying to your face like a chocolate drenched two year old, blaming the pills that were prescribed a year ago is not the first reaction. Our first grandchild was born about 5yrs ago, the ex threw away the pills and cut down on the wine, she has since apologised profusely to our kids and myself for her behaviour and gone back to being a swan. Thing is, once a family has been broken it tends to stay broken, given a 10-15yr of "water under the bridge" we all have the capacity to forgive the most egregious transgressions in a loved one, but very few of us have the amnesic ability to simply forget a "life changing" experience such as a "bitter" family break up , to paraphrase "Drops of Jupiter" - the return of a life long friend from the "soul vacation" of mental desperation is as good as it ever gets.
The following advice for treating stress/depression comes from personal hindsight, seek professional help if you need medical foresight.
1. Visit a GP to get a referral to a qualified psychologist.
2. DO NOT fill a prescription from the GP without first consulting the qualified psychologist you acquired in step 1.
3. DO NOT mix mind altering recreational drugs such as alcohol or weed with mind altering prescription drugs.
4. RTFM.
5. If everyone seems to be treating you like an arsehole, then it's a safe bet you're behaving like one.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The ubiquitous use of medications like mood stabilisers (lithium and valproate) and neuroleptics (called antipsychotic by pharma marketing) need their bit of attention. The demotivating effect of these drugs causes many to lose interest in taking care of themselves, and that knock-on effect can most likely shorten lives. But with so much mental health 'research' funded by big pharma it is unlikely that enough good unbiased research will be done in the area, certainly not enough to counter the sheer weight of 'it really works' stories that big pharma stuff into the literature.
Syphilis drives you crazy, and then kills you. It doesn't kill you and then drive you crazy.
Any disease or genetic condition which slowly kills you is likely to make you depressed first.
Mode up more. I love how they says we don't know why. REALLY, its not self obvious why those with mental illness struggle with pretty much every thing in life from social to physical.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
Now, if we could ONLY get him to understand basic math better (like 244 is greater than 1)
Is that all you got, APK? Really? Loser.
How do you figure? Oh, that's right - you don't! Basic math eludes you. Clue: 244 of your /. peers proved you wrong vs. your 1 and you lose again to the SUPERIOR, apk.
Well then, superior arsehole APK, perhaps you can explain your 'basic working' then? How exactly do 244 up-mods counter my opinion of you? What is this '1' that you speak of? Have you forgotten all the other people who have very low opinions of you? What about all the down-mods you've received? Your data is meaningless without that, loser.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
But that doesn't stop him from posting inanities online as the above post demonstrates.
You are beaten, you are out of ammo, you have nothing to fight with, you suck. Loser.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Psychiatric medications cause obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes (metabolic disorders) and shorten life span by 15 - 25%. It's important to separate effects of illness and effects of treatments for illness.
In japan, mental illness carries a high stigma, so it is not talked about. Note in the article you pointed to, the reported figure is implausibly low, but the use of benzos (used to treat anxiety disorder) are the highest in the world. They also have 700,000 reported Hikikomori with estimated actual numbers of about 1% of the population. Meanwhile, suicide is the leading cause of death in males 20-44 years old. Yeah, it's just peachy there.
Since this is a meta-analysis, it doesn't take into account a lot of other factors; many people with mental illness come from or end up in lower socioeconomic places. But more than anything else, people with mental illness SMOKE. Not all of them, and not all the time, but tobacco usage among the mentally ill is 70% higher according to the CDC than it is amongst everyone else. In this case the correlation is almost a doozy.
Perhaps it is the bad food Nurse Ratched feeds them?
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
I remember the last time I heard someone say "not!" like you do all the time - it was in school. That's right - your behaviour is visible to all for what it is.
Oh, and as for my use of language, yup, it's just what you deserve. Actually, what you really deserve is to be skinned - very slowly - over a fire. Fortunately for you that's illegal and I'm in another country, so swearing at you is going to have to do. Hope that's ok! :-)
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
I'm severely depressed, due to severe guilt and shame over things that happened in the past, although I've learned ways to hide this from most of those who don't know me. Drugs have never worked (over a 20+ year period of trying many). And frankly I don't expect to live long because I don't want to live long. My depression is at least as much a burden to my family as it is to me. They are relatively young and deserve a fresh start, with someone better than me. Though I lack the courage to end my life quickly, and though I fear the possibility of becoming even more disabled and thus even more of a burden, I do manage to live in ways that I know will increase my risk of dying sooner rather than later. This is NOT something I'd recommend to other depressed people, as most depression can be treated and some of it results from unmet needs (love, affection, attention, etc.) which are endemic in the sick "culture" of the U.S. and other Anglophone countries, but can change. Also I am not a burden merely because I'm depressed, but for a variety of other reasons as well, not germane to this discussion. So I'm not suggesting that others follow my lead, but that they get the help they need (not just medical but also societal) as much as they can. But as for myself, it is not any great mystery that I'm going to die reasonably young. I eat crap, too much of it and too infrequently. I drink the strongest alcohol I can stand and lots of it. Lots of caffeine too, often on an empty stomach. I take on a great deal of stress, so as to reduce the stress in the lives of others I care about. I work very hard and save every penny I can, and have as much life insurance as I can reasonably afford. I purposely drink unfiltered water even though we have filtered water available, and expose myself to carcinogens at every opportunity (though not other toxins necessarily, and I take great pains not to expose others). I volunteer for every bit of dangerous or dirty work I can. I sleep only enough to be able to work (and just barely). I never see the doctor, and have instructed those around me not to consent to any medical treatment if I am not conscious. I realize it might happen anyway, but only against my explicit wishes, and only for as long as it takes for me to wake up. I have untreated sleep apnea, GERD, high blood pressure, possible diabetes, and probable early-stage renal failure. In the short term I keep myself reasonably healthy and able to work, since my role as a human ATM is the only useful one I have, but, over a longer period of time, I understand that my risk of death from stroke, heart disease, diabetes, liver failure, renal failure, and cancer is much higher than normal, and I will not consent to treatment for any of the above, so, once one of these hits me, it is more likely than not that my death will ensue reasonably quickly, freeing my family from the burden of putting up with me, and making the world a much better place in the process.
Nonaggression works!