Grant: CIHR Café Scientifique Program - Open Pool

One out four of us in Canada are having mental health issues. Mood disorders, such as bipolar disorder (BD) and major depression, are major public health issues associated with premature mortality and increased risk of developing various aging-related diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes and dementia. For instances, 40 million people are suffering from BD worldwide and their life expectancy is 10 to 20 years shorter than the general population, a finding that cannot be explained exclusively by high suicide risk. The excess mortality is primarily driven by both suicide and cardiovascular disease. The magnitude of increased premature mortality observed among those patients is substantial most likely because of a combination of factors that include direct effects of mood instability, disrupted sleep patterns, unhealthy behaviours (e.g., smoking, sedentarism), side-effects of medications, and through shared pathophysiological processes such as chronic inflammation. Those processes results cardiometabolic diseases (e.g., hypertension, obesity, and dyslipidemia), which increase the mortality in those patients. An integrative and holistic approach is therefore clinically needed. Preventive and therapeutic approaches should therefore go beyond stabilizing mood to include nonpharmacological brain-body interventions for reducing cardiometabolic risk, perhaps through psychoeducation and behavioural interventions, which may help to improve mood stability, cognitive performance, and overall health of individuals with mood disorders. A broad research agenda is also required to understand this complex co-morbid relationship.