Abstract
Background: Despite great advances in medical care, people with schizophrenia die around 25 years earlier than those without this disorder and this unacceptable mortality gap is increasing. Suicide plays a role in this excess mortality, but most of these premature deaths are attributable to natural causes. It is imperative, therefore, to determine if it is possible to identify early indicators of life-threatening physical diseases among individuals with schizophrenia.
Method: 1037 participants from the Dunedin birth cohort underwent clinical assessments at ages 18, 21, 26, 32 and 38 to obtain past-year standardized psychiatric and substance misuse diagnoses, and were divided into those with schizophrenia, depression, tobacco dependence, or none of these diagnoses. These groups were compared on various measures of biological aging - peripheral measures of how fast different parts of the body are aging compared to what is expected given someone's chronological age.