Schizophrenia Affects Your Body, Not Just Your Brain
Schizophrenia is considered a disorder of the mind, influencing the way a person thinks, feels and behaves. But our latest research shows that organs, other than the brain, also change at the onset of the disease.
Scientists have known for a long time that people with schizophrenia have much higher rates of physical illness compared with the general population, and this contributes to startlingly high rates of premature death. People with the disorder die 15 to 20 years earlier than the average person.
In recent years, scientists have observed that people who have recently been diagnosed with schizophrenia and who aren’t on any medication yet show evidence of physiological changes, such as an overactive immune system. Could it be that schizophrenia is in fact a body-wide disorder?
