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Cardiometabolic Disorders in the Offspring of Parents With Severe Mental Illness

Maria Protsenko1, Martta Kerkelä, Jouko Miettunen

  • 1From the Department of Psychiatry (Protsenko, Kerkelä, Veijola), Research Unit of Clinical Neuroscience, and Center for Life Course Health Research (Miettunen, Auvinen, Järvelin), University of Oulu; Medical Research Center Oulu (Miettunen, Veijola), Oulu University Hospital and University of Oulu, Oulu; THL, Information Services Department (Gissler), Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki; University of Turku, Research Centre for Child Psychiatry (Gissler), Turku, Finland; Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society (Gissler), Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Psychiatry (Veijola), University Hospital of Oulu, Oulu, Finland; and Department of Psychiatry (Jones), University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, United Kingdom.

Psychosomatic Medicine
|December 16, 2021
PubMed

Insights

Children of parents with severe mental illness (SMI) have an increased risk of cardiometabolic disorders, particularly males. This highlights the need to monitor the physical health of offspring with parental SMI.

Area of Science:

  • Epidemiology
  • Psychiatry
  • Cardiology

Background:

  • Severe mental illness (SMI) is linked to a higher prevalence of cardiometabolic disorders.
  • The intergenerational impact of parental SMI on offspring's physical health remains under-explored.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the association between parental severe mental illness (SMI) and the risk of cardiometabolic morbidity in their offspring.
  • To determine if offspring of parents with SMI exhibit increased rates of conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966, following 11,175 children until 2015.
  • Assessed parental SMI as the exposure and cardiometabolic disorders (diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, coronary artery disease, obesity, cerebrovascular disorders) as outcomes.
  • Employed survival analysis to calculate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI).

Main Results:

  • Offspring of parents with SMI had a significantly higher risk of developing cardiometabolic disorders (HR = 1.63, 95% CI = 1.36-1.94).
  • This increased risk was statistically significant in male offspring (HR = 1.95, 95% CI = 1.56-2.44) but not in female offspring (HR = 1.29, 95% CI = 0.96-1.73).

Conclusions:

  • Parental severe mental illness (SMI) is associated with an elevated risk of cardiometabolic disorders in offspring, especially males.
  • Specific conditions like coronary artery disease, hyperlipidemia, obesity, and hypertension are more prevalent in male offspring of parents with SMI.
  • Clinical practice should consider the somatic health of offspring of parents with SMI alongside their mental health.
Abstract

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