'People with bipolar disorder 6 times likelier to die from suicide, accidents'

People having bipolar disorder are 6 times more likely to die prematurely from external causes such as accidents violence and suicide than those not having the condition according to new research published in BMJ Mental Health reported PTIThey are also twice as likely to die from physical illnesses such as heart andor respiratory diseases or cancer with alcohol contributing majorly towards it the Finnish populationbased study foundPeople with bipolar disorder are known to face a heightened risk of premature death However the drivers behind this especially the role of physical illnesses were unclear which this study aimed to understand researchers from Niuvanniemi Hospital Finland and other institutes from Sweden and the UK saidThey tracked 47018 people with bipolar disorder with an average age of 38 years at the start of the monitoring period 20042018 Their data was picked from nationwide medical and social insurance registers More than half of those identified 57 per cent were womenOverall 3300 7 per cent died over the monitoring period compared with 141536 deaths in the general population excluding people having the condition the researchers found and calculated the heightened risk of death to be 6 times due to external causes and 2 times from physical illnesses Average age at death was 50 years and nearly twothirds of the deaths were in men61 per cent of the 3300 deaths 2027 were physically caused and 39 per cent 1273 were externally caused Of the physically caused deaths alcohol was found to cause the most at 29 per cent or 595 deaths Of these liver disease accounted for nearly half followed by accidental alcohol poisoning and alcohol dependenceRemaining physically caused deaths were found to be caused by heart disease and stroke 27 per cent cancer 22 per cent respiratory disease 4 per cent diabetes 2 per cent and other causes 1516 per centOf the externally caused deaths suicide caused the most 58 per cent Of these nearly half were caused by overdose of prescribed mental health medications including those used for treating bipolar disorderA balanced consideration between therapeutic response potential serious long term somatic physical side effects of different medicines and risk of causespecific premature mortality is needed especially in younger persons the authors wrote in their paperTargeting preventive interventions for substance abuse will likely reduce the mortality gap both due to external causes and somatic causes Suicide prevention remains a priority and better awareness of the risk of overdose and other poisonings is warranted they saidPTI