The physical effects of mental illness

Everybody with a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia or manic depressive illness, should have an annual health screen with an emphasis on risk factors for heart disease, according to Prof Jogin Thakore, associate professor of psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin.

While advice on smoking cessation, diet and exercise has led to dramatic falls in the rates of death due to heart disease in the general population, Prof Thakore points out the rates of death due to heart disease in those with mental illness has remained the same over the past 20 years.

Prof Thakore is speaking about the physical effects of mental illness at the RCSIMiniMed open lecture series tomorrow evening, at the RCSI, St Stephen’s Green. Free registration at rcsi.ie

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