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Heart Disease A ‘Silent Killer’ In Patients With Severe Mental Illness
November 15, 2009 by NewsBot
A large new study confirms that people with severe mental disorders - such as schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders - are 25 percent to 40 percent more prone to die from heart disease than people without mental illness are. Moreover, smoking and physical inactivity - behaviors that individuals potentially can change - significantly contribute to this increased risk of death, found researchers led by Amy Kilbourne, Ph.D.