Psychiatric News (10/28) reports a study found that “individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) are prone to accelerated retinal thinning.” The researchers “used optical exam data from more than 50,000 participants in the UK Biobank without SMI to develop charts of typical age-related retinal changes between the ages of 40 and 70.” Among normal study participants, “retinal thickness declined gradually with age as expected.” However, they found that across all ages, “retinal thickness was lower in adults with SMI than those without. The greatest difference from average was seen for schizophrenia, followed by bipolar disorder and then major depression. Females with mental illness showed more pronounced deviations than males.” The researchers “also divided the participants with schizophrenia into those currently taking or not taking antipsychotics; they found that medication use did not influence retinal thickness.” The study was published in Schizophrenia Bulletin. (SOURCE: APA Headlines)