Some Common Medications Found to Help People With Serious Mental Illness

Common medications used to fight cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes may be useful in lowering risk of self-harm and psychiatric hospitalization for people with a serious mental illness (SMI) such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or nonaffective psychosis, according to astudy published yesterday inJAMA Psychiatry.In the study, Joseph F. Hayes, Ph.D., of University College London and an international team of colleagues analyzed data from the health records of 142,691 Swedish patients aged 15 and older who had an SMI and were treated with psychiatric medication from October 2005 through December 2016. The data also included whether the patients were treated with statins for cholesterol, L-type calcium channel blockers for high blood pressure, or metformin for type 2 diabetes. The researchers then compared rates of self-harm and psychiatric hospitalization in these patients to determine whether they had been taking one of the three types of medications at the time of harming themselves and/or psychiatric hospitalization.The researchers found that patients who had bipolar disorder and were taking one of the three types of medications were 8% to 20% less likely to experience psychiatric hospitalization and 19% to 27% less likely to harm themselves. Patients with schizophrenia who were taking one of the three types of medications were 20% to 27% less likely to experience psychiatric hospitalization and 36% to 70% less likely to harm themselves. Patients with nonaffect...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: bipolar disorder JAMA Psychiatry Joseph Hayes L-type calcium channel blockers medications Metformin nonaffective psychosis psychiatric hospitalization schizophrenia self-harm statins Source Type: research