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In the past, research and clinical practice in schizophrenia focussed on symptoms to the neglect of other outcomes. Surprisingly death, arguably the most important outcome of all, received relatively little attention despite early evidence that life expectancy is reduced in schizophrenia. Large-scale population registers with patient follow-up over years have begun to change this. Scandinavia has led the field in establishing these: we should be grateful for the forethought of the healthcare agencies collecting these data. Studies using these databases consistently find that people with schizophrenia have reduced life expectancy and elevated mortality rates for a range of common causes when compared with the general population (1, 2). Moreover, some recent studies have reported a worrying widening of this mortality gap, with elevated mortality rates and earlier age at death in people with schizophrenia relative to that …