Researchers looking into mortality trends and autism have made a troubling discovery: People on the autism spectrum are dying young — some 12 to 30 years earlier than might otherwise be expected.
The analysis, conducted by Sweden's Karolinska Institute and published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found that the leading cause of premature death in autistic adults isn't due to diseases, such as heart ailments or cancer, that are the main killers in the general population. It's suicide.
The data, which includes information on 27,000 people with the social-communication disorder and about 2.5 million who do not have the diagnosis from Sweden's national registries, found that, on average, autistic adults die 18 years younger than their non-autistic counterparts.
An autistic person's age at death also appeared to be impacted by cognitive ability. Those with autism and a learning disability died 30 years earlier on average while those without intellectual impairment died 12 years earlier. Individuals considered to be on the "high-functioning" end of the spectrum with strong language skills — those who might have been diagnosed with Asperger's before the diagnostic criteria changed — still had double the risk of dying young as those without the condition.
The overall trends were similar for both genders, but autistic women with learning disabilities had the highest risk of premature death of any of the subgroups.
"This new research confirms the true scale of the hidden mortality crisis in autism," said Jon Spiers, chief executive of Autistica, an autism charity in Britain. "The inequality in outcomes for autistic people shown in this data is shameful. We cannot accept a situation where many autistic people will never see their 40th birthday."
Well, it was nice shitposting, but it looks like we won't be here for long.
https://archive.is/WSJBT