Improving the Identification of Cardiometabolic Risk in Psychotic Disorders

Improving the Identification of Cardiometabolic Risk in Psychotic Disorders

People with psychotic disorders die on average 10-15 years sooner than the general population, predominantly from preventable physical conditions including cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes and obesity. Where in the general population traits of cardiometabolic dysfunction tend to emerge around middle age, in psychotic disorders these traits are already detectable in young people by illness onset. This helps to explain why general population-based CVD risk prediction tools, which are routinely used in clinical practice, substantially under-estimate risk in young people with psychosis. As a result, the benefits of preventative strategies for CVD, which represent the biggest area for potential life-saving changes according to the NHS Long Term Plan, do not reach people with psychotic disorders in time even though they need them, and so the mortality gap continues to widen.

In this talk, Ben will outline the current state of play in our understanding of the comorbidity between cardiometabolic and psychotic disorders. He will then introduce the Psychosis Metabolic Risk Calculator (PsyMetRiC), a novel clinically useful cardiometabolic risk prediction algorithm tailored for young people with psychosis with clear international translational potential.

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About the Speaker

Dr Benjamin Perry is a Higher Trainee in Psychiatry, and Clinical Lecturer based at Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge. Through his combined clinical academic training, Ben has developed expertise in using observational and genetic epidemiological methods in large datasets to improve our understanding of the cardiometabolic comorbidity of mental disorders. His work on this topic has been published in high-impact general medical and psychiatric journals and has achieved recognition through numerous national and international academic prizes. Ben was also recently invited to lead on the development of national guidance for cardiometabolic monitoring in SMI. During his NIHR-funded clinical PhD Fellowship, Ben developed PsyMetRiC, the first cardiometabolic risk prediction algorithm tailored for young people after psychosis onset, and he is now working hard to ensure PsyMetRiC is available for routine use in clinical practice, both in the UK and internationally.