Title: Why people with schizophrenia die earlier? Mortality and accelerated ageing
Abstract: This talk explores one of the most persistent and unsettling facts in psychiatry: the markedly reduced life expectancy associated with schizophrenia. Drawing on results from our systematic review recently published at the British Journal of Psychiatry, this talk examines whether schizophrenia is best understood not only as a psychiatric disorder, but also as a condition of advanced biological ageing. I will present converging evidence from epidemiology, cognition, neuroimaging, telomere biology, epigenetics, and immune-metabolic research, and argue that the key question is no longer whether markers of ageing matters in schizophrenia, but how early it begins and what can still be changed.
Biography: Emilio Fernandez-Egea is an academic psychiatrist based in Cambridge, working across the University of Cambridge and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. At CPFT, he is involved in the Cambridge Psychosis Centre, a specialist multidisciplinary service for complex cases of schizophrenia and psychosis. His clinical and research work examines the links between psychosis, physical health, mortality, inflammation, and accelerated ageing. He is particularly interested in how biological and social factors shape long-term outcomes in severe mental illness.
Zoom details:
https://zoom.us/j/93711378882?pwd=ONUDhocbW7ucS5dRak0RGdZBC27ynz.1
Meeting ID: 937 1137 8882
Passcode: 845614
Posted on 10/06/2026
