A study on all the residents aged 16-64 living in Sweden with registered schizophrenia treatment[1] shows that life expectancy is 15 to 20 years shorter when compared with the general population. On the other hand, when comparing the schizophrenic population that does not use antipsychotic drugs, life expectancy is 50 years shorter.

 

Same results are published by the World Health Organization[2]. Those who use psychiatric drugs show a reduction in life expectancy. The causes range from cardiovascular diseases, to atherosclerosis, hypertension, strokes, higher rates of Type II diabetes, respiratory diseases, and infections such as HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis.

 

An 11-year follow-up study of mortality which used nationwide registers, in Finland, and compared 66,881 patients with schizophrenia with the total population (5.2 million people) found that patients using second generation antipsychotic drugs have a life expectancy shorter by 25 years.[3]

 

The Vital Needs Theory - page 1

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[1] Antipsychotics and mortality in a nationwide cohort of 29,823 patients with schizophrenia www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0920996417307624

[2] https://www.who.int/mental_health/management/info_sheet.pdf?ua=1

[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19595447/