The life expectancy of men with schizophrenia is 15 years shorter than those without the disease, while for women, it is 12 years shorter, a new study has found.

Schizophrenia is a serious mental health condition characterised by disturbances in a person's thoughts, perceptions, emotions and behaviour. Symptoms can include delusions, hallucinations, behaviour change, social withdrawal and problems sleeping.

The condition affects around one in every 100 people - an estimated 41,000 people in Ireland are currently affected.

According to US and Swedish scientists, it is already known that the life expectancy of people with schizophrenia is usually lower than the general population. However the reasons for this are unclear, so they decided to look into this further.

They looked at over six million people between 2003 and 2009. Almost 8,300 of these had the mental health disease.

The study found that men with schizophrenia die, on average, 15 years earlier than men without the condition, while women die 12 years earlier. However, they also found that those affected are much more likely to die of two major diseases - heart disease or cancer.

Furthermore, the scientists noted that people with schizophrenia were no more likely to be diagnosed with these conditions, despite the fact that they had twice as much contact with health services compared to their non-affected peers.

According to the team, ‘it is clear the health service is failing to diagnose cardiovascular disease and cancer in these patients'.

Overall, women with schizophrenia were more than three times as likely to die of heart disease than non-affected women, while men were more than twice as likely to die.

Women with schizophrenia were 1.7 times more likely to die of cancer, while men were 1.4 times more likely to, compared to non-affected people.

Among men with schizophrenia who had heart disease at the time of their death, just one in four had been diagnosed prior to their death, compared with almost half of men who did not have schizophrenia.

"It is unacceptable that such a vulnerable group of people, who also have extensive documented contact with the health service, should die prematurely of conditions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer - diseases that should be preventable.

"A much greater degree of diagnostic and preventive measures could be put in place for this vulnerable group in our society," commented lead scientists, Prof Jan Sundquist of Lund University in Sweden.

Details of these findings are published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.