title: Increased Framingham 10-year CVD risk in Chinese patients with schizophrenia.
abstract: BACKGROUND & HYPOTHESIS: Schizophrenia is associated with increased mortality rates, which has been attributed to the greater incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) events. The Framingham risk score (FRS) is a widely-used age- and gender-specific algorithm to estimate 10-year CVD risk and vascular age. The main aim of this study was to determine the cardiovascular risk profile in schizophrenia and examine the effect of metabolic syndrome (MetS) as a predictor of CVD risk. We hypothesized that patients with schizophrenia have an increased 10-year CVD risk.
  
  
  METHODS
  83 Chinese patients with schizophrenia and 243 Chinese community controls were recruited. Their medical and smoking histories were obtained, and anthropometric parameters measured. All subjects provided fasted venous blood samples for lipid and glucose measurements. 10-year CVD risk and the difference between vascular and actual age (VAdiff) for each participant were computed using the FRS and compared between patients and controls.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Schizophrenia patients had a higher mean 10-year CVD risk of 4.6%, as compared with 3.1% in controls, and a greater VAdiff of 4.6 years vs. 0.6 years. Both smoking and MetS contributed significantly to the 10-year CVD risk in patients with schizophrenia, with smoking having a greater effect than MetS on this risk.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study found a significantly elevated mean 10-year CVD risk and VAdiff in patients with schizophrenia compared with controls. Findings point towards the importance of smoking cessation and screening for MetS to decrease the excess CVD risk in patients with schizophrenia.
authors.affiliation: Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
authors.forename: Yi Hang
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Tay
authors.affiliation: Research Division, Institute of Mental Health, Singapore.
authors.forename: Milawaty
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nurjono
authors.affiliation: Research Division, Institute of Mental Health, Singapore; Department of General Psychiatry 1, Institute of Mental Health, Singapore; Office of Clinical Sciences, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, National University of Singapore, Singapore. Electronic address: jimmy_lee@imh.com.sg.
authors.forename: Jimmy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D044466:Asian People; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008659:Metabolic Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D011379:Prognosis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012307:Risk Factors; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality