Warning on side effects of drugs for mental illness

Failure to monitor the side-effects of drugs to treat long-term mental illness is shaving up to 20 years off the lives of thousands of patients, according to a leading consultant psychiatrist.

Siobhán Barry said up to 100,000 people, “enough to fill Croke Park on any given Sunday”, are on psychotropic medications — which have been shown to cause conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.

This was mainly because of the significant weight gain associated with these drugs, said Dr Barry. In addition, many suffering mental ill health also smoked, and this compounded their physical health problems.