A new study has found that the risk of death due to a sudden heart attack could be four times higher for people with schizophrenia. The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and published in the journal Heart.

Schizophrenia is a mental health condition which affects how people think, feel and behave. The condition can result in hallucinations, delusions, and disorganised thinking and behaviour. When people hallucinate, they see things or hear voices that others can’t see. On the other hand, delusions are beliefs that are not true.

The study says that for those having other types of mental illness such as depression, the death risk is still twice as high, regardless of age, suggesting that an 18-year-old could expect to live 10 years fewer, compared to one of the same age without mental health issues.

The researchers said that while having a psychiatric condition is known to heighten death risk due to a sudden cardiac arrest, it is not clear if the risk extends across one’s lifespan. For the study, the researchers looked at the deaths of 18 to 90-year-old Danish residents in 2010. Over 45,000 people had died that year, of which 6,002 were classified as sudden cardiac deaths, 3,683 in the general population and 2,319 among those with a mental illness.

The team found that overall, cases of sudden deaths due to a heart attack were up to 6.5 times more among those having a mental disorder, compared to the general population.

The researchers said the death risk was twice as high in people with depression, 3-fold higher among those with bipolar disorder and 4.5 times higher risk among those with schizophrenia. Ill mental health was found to be related to a doubling in death risk from a sudden cardiac arrest, regardless of age, sex and co-existing medical conditions.

Also, having a mental health condition was also significantly linked with death due to other causes, almost 3 times the risk compared to that in the general population, and with a shortened lifespan.

The researchers also estimated that a 70-year-old with a mental health condition could expect to live another 10 years, compared with 14 more years that one without such a condition could expect to live. A sudden death due to a cardiac arrest was also found to explain about 13 per cent of the discrepancy in reduced longevity among people with ill mental health, the team said.

While they acknowledged no cause-and-effect links, the researchers proposed that unhealthy lifestyles that people with mental health conditions are likely to follow, along with side effects of medications, could make such individuals vulnerable to developing metabolic disorders, including high blood pressure and heart disease.

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