People with depression, other mental disorders more likely to die early, study reveals

New European research has found that individuals with mental health problems such as depression and anxiety disorders appear to have a shorter life expectancy than the general population.

Carried out by researchers at Aarhus University, Denmark, the new large-scale study used Danish health registers to gather data from nearly 7.4 million Danish adults who lived in the country at some point between 1995 and 2015.

The researchers classified mental disorders into ten groups, such as substance use disorders and mood disorders, and causes of death into 11 groups, including death by natural causes (from diseases and medical conditions) and external causes (suicide, homicide, and accidents).

The findings, published in The Lancet, showed that those with mental disorders had a shorter life expectancy after being diagnosed with the condition than people of the same age without a mental health diagnosis.

Men appeared to have a life expectancy that was ten years shorter on average, while a woman’s life expectancy was cut by seven years. The risk of an early death was also higher for people with mental disorders across all ages.

All types of mental health conditions including depression, anxiety disorders, and substance use disorders were associated with shorter life expectancies.

The new study is the most comprehensive yet to investigate whether those with mental disorders have an increased risk of premature death.

“It is well known that people with mental disorders die earlier than the general population. However, for the first time, we present a comprehensive study where we investigate mortality in specific types of mental disorders. We have used new ways to measure life expectancy that are more accurate than the ones used in the past,” said Dr. Oleguer Plana-Ripoll, lead author of the study.

“For example, people with depression or another type of mood disorder, which are among the most common mental disorders, had higher mortality rates,” noted Plana-Ripoli. “Apart from an increased risk of death due to suicide, we also confirm an increased risk of death due to somatic conditions such as cancer, respiratory diseases, diabetes etc. We found that men and women with mood disorders experienced life expectancies respectively 7.9 and 6.2 years shorter after disease diagnosis compared to the overall Danish person with the same age.”

“Our study emphasises the urgent need to improve general health for people with mental disorders,” added co-author Professor John McGrath.

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