April 1, 2017, TEL AVIV, Israel—Mortality rates for peole with bipolar disorder are higher than the general public even in a country with health care coverage for all, a new study suggests.

Researchers in Israel, which has universal health care, compared people with and without bipolar disorder. They found those with bipolar accessed health services such as lab tests, visits to specialists, and medications as much the comparison group, yet their mortality risk was 1.7 times greater.

Results were similar for a subgroup of people with bipolar and co-morbid diabetes.

The study, which appeared in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, was entitled “Health care and mortality among persons with severe mental illness.”

Source: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0706743716666997