Patients With BD May Have High Rates Of Medical Illness

Medwire News (11/5, Cowen) reports that according to a study published online Oct. 30 in the British Journal of Psychiatry, “patients with bipolar disorder [BD] have high rates of medical illness, which often exceeds the levels observed in patients with unipolar depression.” Researchers “interviewed 1720 patients (median age 47 years, 70% women) with bipolar disorder about their lifetime history of 20 common medical illnesses, and compared the rates of each illness with those observed in previously described recurrent unipolar depression (n=1737) and control (n=1340) groups.” Investigators found “significant” differences “for asthma, type 2 diabetes, elevated lipids, epilepsy, gastric ulcers, hypertension, kidney disease, multiple sclerosis, osteoarthritis and thyroid disease, with the highest rates generally observed among the patients with” BD.

Related Links:

— “Medical illness common in bipolar disorder,” Laura Cowen, MedWire News, November 5, 2014.

Posted in In The News.