Living with bipolar disorder often poses several challenges, including social stigma, isolation and strained relationships in personal and work space. A new study says bipolar disorder is associated with a four to six-fold risk of premature death.
Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings with emotional highs, called mania, and lows, characterized by depressive moods. Around 4% of Americans live with bipolar disorder.
A team of researchers from the University of Michigan (U-M) found that people with bipolar disorder have a much higher risk of dying prematurely compared to smokers. The findings of the study were published in the journal Psychiatry Research.
The risk of premature death in smokers people who ever smoked is about two times more than those who never smoked. However, people with bipolar disorder faces a much greater risk; they are four to six times more likely to die prematurely compared to those without the condition. The findings were made after evaluating two different databases.
“Bipolar disorder has long been seen as a risk factor for mortality, but always through a lens of other common causes of death. We wanted to look at it by itself in comparison with conditions and lifestyle behaviors that are also linked to higher rates of premature death,” said Anastasia Yocum, lead author of the study, in a news release.
Researchers first studied a group of 1,128 volunteers who were part of a long-term study of people with and without bipolar disorder. Of the 56 deaths, all but two were from the group that had bipolar disorder (847 participants).
“With statistical adjustments, their analysis shows that having a diagnosis of bipolar disorder made someone six times more likely to die during a 10-year period than people taking part in the same study who did not have bipolar disorder. By comparison, study participants who had ever smoked or were over age 60 were more than twice as likely to die in that same time as people who…
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