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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?
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.
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...
A number of reasons
1) Basic human compassion
2) Mentally ill and drug abusers affect the healthy. Drug crime is rampant with a high cost to society. Even if all drugs were legalized, as I believe they should be, there would be still a heavy price, just as with alcoholism. These would include car crashes, unemployment, failed businesses, etc that you mention.
3) As someone with depression, it seems worth fixing.
4) Mental illness is just that, an illness.Why do you draw a distinction between cancer and mental illness. How is someone with cancer "healthy"?
If antidepressants are really the answer, why does America, with one of the highest rates of antidepressant use, also have one of the highest rates of depression in the world? If they were really effective, people should be less depressed, and in fact there's more depression and mental illness than ever. There's increasingly concern that antidepressants are actually making things worse. In the short term, antidepressants can be effective in managing the treatment of depression, for some people. The problem is that they can cause long-term changes in how the brain functions, such that the person becomes dependent upon the drug. This means that on quitting antidepressants, the depression is more likely to return than it would have been if it had simply been left to resolve itself. There have been a number of studies published that suggest that the long-term outcome of mental illness is worse when antidepressants are used. As far as I know, there isn't a single study that has shown that outcomes for depression are improved long-term- over the course of 5-10 years instead of 5-10 weeks- by the use of antidepressants.
Maybe antidepressants do have a role in treating mental illness, but given the risks- increased risk of suicide, the highly addictive nature of some of the drugs (especially ones with short half-lives) and the risk that they can make people worse than when they started, these should be a method of last resort for severe clinical depression, NOT a first-line treatment for everyone who seems moderately sad or anxious. There are a *lot* of things that have been shown to be potentially beneficial- cognitive behavioral therapy, exercise, light therapy, sleep therapy, and supplements like Omega 3 fatty acids, vitamin B, D, zinc and magnesium, cutting down on carbohydrates- which come without the risks posed by antidepressants.