How to Identify Heart Disease Risk in Schizophrenia Patients?

A blood test can be a signal that a person with schizophrenia is heading towards metabolic syndrome, which increases their risk of developing heart disease due to their brain disorder treatment.

Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness characterized by distortions in thinking, perception, emotions, language, sense of self, and behavior that affect 20 million people worldwide.

About Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by symptoms of thought, behavior and social problems.

‘White blood cell count is an inexpensive blood test marker to identify heart disease risk in schizophrenia patients.’

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Common experiences include hallucinations (hearing voices or seeing things that are not there) and delusions (fixed, false beliefs).

Metabolic syndrome is a collection of risk factors that are associated with inflammation and cardiovascular disease like high blood pressure, high blood glucose, and a larger waist circumference. Whereas stress-induced inflammation is known to play a role in schizophrenia.

This more pronounced role is a factor for at least 25% of patients, based on the previous studies that have already measured inflammation markers in the blood of schizophrenia patients.

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Antipsychotics are the class of drugs which help in treating mental disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorders and other stress related psychosis symptoms.

Based on these facts, researchers at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University examined data on 20,000 schizophrenia patients who participated in some 50 clinical trials across the nation to see if there is a clear indicator for these additional risks.

They suspect and have evidence that an elevated white blood cell count, a measure of overall health status used by primary care physicians every day, could be that signal.

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Mental well-being is a concern and abnormal coping of emotions can lead to neurosis or psychosis. Mental illnesses can range from depression, anxiety, phobias to schizophrenia and affective disorders.

Increased inflammation levels in an unhealthy vicious circle prompted by an inactive lifestyle behavior can also raise the white blood cell count.

Antipsychotic drugs taken by schizophrenia patients that suppress the effects like hallucinations and delusions, can also increase the risk of metabolic syndrome.

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They also assessed relevant details like whether patients had metabolic syndrome when they presented the first time to a psychiatrist, what happened to their white blood cell count, and other inflammatory factors over time.

The assessment reported that many individuals with schizophrenia struggle with problems like excess weight and high blood sugar and evidence of related inflammation in their blood in their first psychiatric visit itself.

This inflammatory biomarker, white blood cell count can be the next step toward personalized medicine. It will also be useful in identifying drugs that help to interrupt the consequences of metabolic syndrome in the future.

Source-Medindia