Cardiovascular risk remains high in schizophrenia with modest improvements in bipolar disorder during past decade

Abstract

Elvs ashagen T, Quintana DS, Reponen EJ, Mørch RH, Lunding SH, Vedal TSJ, Dieset I, Melle I, Lagerberg TV, Andreassen OA. Cardiovascular risk remains high in schizophrenia with modest improvements in bipolar disorder during past decade Objective: While CVD risk has decreased in the general population during the last decade, the situation in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) is unknown. Methods: We compared CVD risk factors in patients with SCZ and BD recruited from 2002-2005 (2005 sample, N = 270) with patients recruited from 2006-2017 (2017 sample, N = 1011) from the same catchment area in Norway. The 2017 sample was also compared with healthy controls (N = 922) and the general population (N range = 1285-4587, Statistics Norway) from the same area and period. Results: Patients with SCZ and BD in the 2017 sample had significantly higher level of most CVD risk factors compared to healthy controls and the general population. There was no significant difference in the prevalence of CVD risk factors in SCZ between the 2005 and 2017 samples except a small increase in glucose in the 2017 sample. There were small-to-moderate reductions in hypertension, obesity, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein, systolic and diastolic blood pressure in the BD 2017 sample compared to the 2005 sample.Conclusion: Despite major advances in health promotion during the past decade, there has been no reduction in the level of CVD risk factors in patients with SCZ and modest improvement in BD. Significant outcomes• We found no improvement in CVD risk in patients with SCZ while patients with BD had small-tomoderate reductions in several risk factors during the past decade.• The striking increase in CVD risk factors in patients with SCZ and BD compared to the general population is a major clinical problem in psychiatry. Limitations• The study periods of the 2005 and 2017 samples are close, which may reduce the chance of detecting differences between the samples.• Fasting blood samples and information on daily smoking were retrieved from a subset of healthy controls, although a sufficiently large number for comparison with patients.

Disentangling the relationship between cholesterol, aggression, and impulsivity in severe mental disorders

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“…Affective symptoms were assessed with the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) (Young, Biggs, Ziegler, & Meyer, 1978) and the Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia (CDSS) (Addington, Addington, & Schissel, 1990). The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) (Kay, Fiszbein, & Opler, 1987) was used to rate current psychotic symptoms, achieving inter‐rater reliability of intraclass correlation coefficient at 0.82 (Rodevand et al., 2019). The PANSS consists of 30 items, each scored from 1 (no symptoms) to 7 (severe symptoms).…”

The Effect of an Atherogenic Diet and Acute Hyperglycaemia on Endothelial Function in Rabbits Is Artery Specific

“…p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant, trends were reported when p = 0.05-0.099, and >0.099 was considered not significant (n/s). Effect sizes are commonly used to study the clinical relevance of an intervention and show the magnitude of the effect that it is producing [31][32][33]. The Cohen's d (d) equation was used to examine the magnitude of the effect of the high glucose incubations on blood vessel relaxation and immunohistochemistry results.…”

Undercarboxylated osteocalcin has no adverse effect on endothelial function in rabbit aorta or human vascular cells

“…Trends were reported if p was between 0.05 and 0.09. Effect sizes are commonly used to study the clinical relevance of intervention and show the magnitude of the effect that it is producing (Maylor, Zakrzewski‐Fruer, Stensel, Orton, & Bailey, 2019; Rodevand et al, 2019; Silva, Lacerda, & da Mota, 2019). The Cohen's d ( d ) equation was used to examine the magnitude of effect.…”