Schizophrenia patients at high risk of cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy: Study

According to recently published research data in Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CAN) is noted as highly prevalent in patients with schizophrenia.

"Testing for CAN is feasible and might be a new clinically tool for detecting early stages of CVD in patients with schizophrenia."the research team further opined.

Cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CAN) is an independent predictor of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in patients with diabetes as well as in patients with pre-diabetes and metabolic syndrome. The majority of excess mortality among people with schizophrenia seems to be caused by cardiovascular complications, and in particular, coronary heart disease. In addition, the prevalence of heart failure and arrhythmias is increased in this population. Reduced efferent vagal activity, which has been consistently described in these patients and their healthy first-degree relatives, might be one important mechanism contributing to their increased cardiac mortality. A decrease in heart rate variability and complexity was often shown in unmedicated patients when compared to healthy controls. In addition, faster breathing rates, accompanied by shallow breathing, seem to influence autonomic cardiac functioning in acute unmedicated patients substantially. Moreover, low-physical fitness is a further and independent cardiac risk factor present in this patient population.Patients with schizophrenia have an increased rate of metabolic syndrome, pre-diabetes and diabetes as compared to the general population. Despite of this, occurrence CAN has not been investigated in patient with schizophrenia.