Autistics die a lot younger then the general population

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Can one increase their longevity?

Yes & No. What you can do is increase the likelyhood of a longer life. As the studies use statistics to indicate a negative trend, you can use statistics to try and join a positive trend.

This was done 'El Quicko'. Just a fast survey of half a dozen articles on the subject. For more specific data look into the areas.

Some Things That Increase Lifespan.

In no particular order...

1. (MY FAVORITE!! !!) Sex
2. Good diet
3. Supplements (vitamins, etc)
4. Moderate exercise
5. Stimulate your mind
6. Pets
7. Have friends
8. Laughter (watch comedys, joke, etc)
9. Quit smoking
10. Reduce stress
11. Positive attitude


One might note some of these are not traditionally strong areas for autistics. Which may be a factor in all this. It can be a motivation to push out of some comfort zones, in a measured way. By coincidence I made my first New Years resolution ever this year (in consultation with my wife). To have sex more frequently! I wasn't thinking specifically about longevity but did feel intuitively it was healthy activity (and fun).

I'd also like to point out the newer study says the average lifespan is 70. That must be worldwide. In the states its around 78 for men and 82 for women. So your location must be factored in. For instance it should mean that the average lifespan in the USA for autistics is 62 not 54. (If 54 is even correct).

I don't agree that the lifespan for ALL AUTISTIC PEOPLE in the US is 54 and 62.

I wish we had the means to do a study to disprove this once and for all.

I just don't think this is true.

I'm 55, and I've had at least some stress in my life. I don't smoke. I don't feel like I'm in imminent danger of death.

There was once a poster who was 80 years old. There's at least a few posters who are in their 70s.

I don't think that studies even pretend to offer the truth. They take a sample, test it, and find a common trait (or something). They publish their results, not as truth but in the hope that other scientists will bother to try to disprove them, which is the scientific way and so much better than being ignored. Thus the mountain of speculation grows.

The youngest in my family and I can't form relationships so an early check out will not worry me.

People on this thread need to relax a bit nobody knows how long they are going to live.

If I get rub over by a bus for exampled oes that still count as an early autism death.

If you want certainty... you all have exactly a 100.00% chance to die at some point in your lives. Reassuring isn't it?

British charity Autistica to raise 10 million pounds to try and find out more.

BBC article

This story is is getting published in most of the major British media

Autistica research webpage

My first thought upon seeing a charity using very negative parts of autism to raise money for research was Oh No not another another Autism Speaks. But it does not seem that way. Seem is the operative word, where will the money actually go?

It's impossible to tell from those links how this project would proceed in any detail. It sounds very ambitious to me.

Perhaps I could use this post instead to comment on the notion that research claims where the sample number is really large are always reliable, and "the bigger the better and more reliable still". There are stunning examples of the fallacy causing havoc, because despite the large numbers observed, problems can occur at any part of the research - from theoretical assumptions (which may be wrong) onward.

By way of example, the following study's findings misled millions of people, including the medical profession internationally, for years, causing unnecessary suffering as women were denied choice re HRT.

Cost of research: $625 million (US)
Sample size: 161,000 women
Research facility: WHI
Findings were announced in the international media in 2002, very widely publicised and accepted at face value without critical analysis. The researchers claimed that HRT caused increased rates of breast cancer, heart attack and stroke. This changed patient and doctor behaviour instantly; fallacious belief of the claim is still widely in existence, even in the medical profession. The findings were prematurely released with great fanfare, with no peer review at that stage. The newspapers had a field day...

They were sensationalist and flawed. Many similar studies since have failed to find evidence for the claim; so how did such a big expensive study get it so wrong? The answer is surprisingly simple: the researchers asked the right questions, but they asked the wrong women. The study was supposed to assess safety of HRT use for menopausal symptoms; very few women experience menopause later than age 52. Yet the average age of the women in the WHI study was 63 years, and the average number of years since menopause was more than 10 years. It didn't matter then how big a sample they used, because it was the wrong sample.

Amazingly, it was not until 2007 that intense scrutiny of the WHI data demonstrated that the claims were fallacious. The revised analyses have been published, and peer reviewed, though the myth remains entrenched.
........
So I take no research claims at face value; particularly in 'trendy' areas where competition for status and funding is intense.

I agree it's very important to expose flawed research for what it is. Especially if the results turn out to be dead wrong.

Alas, there are unscrupulous people who have less than altruistic motives (e.g., the desire to sell papers/magazines). The exposition of flawed research as fact has led to lifestyle changes which turned out to yield false or no results in the end.

It's a fine thing you're doing, B19, teaching us about this issue in a way which sticks to the facts.

I think people who think they will die young due to this study are making cognitive errors.
They may die young for any reason, but it is not necessarily because they are autistic.
As before, if you don't have congenital disease that shortens lifespan (and is linked to autism) or severe epilepsy that may shorten lifespan (and is linked to autism), then you don't have to worry about early death due to autism.

That's going a little too far, IMO. We all know that depression and anxiety, present in the vast majority of autistic persons to differing degrees, can negatively impact on health and well-being, and correlate with negative outcomes from suicide to never leaving the house and therefore never seeing a doctor.

Far from calling the research flawed, I think we should call the research limited. Every research design has strengths and weaknesses, which is all the more reason to triangulate from different approaches to truth.

Those are taking several steps from autism though, from depression/anxiety to impacting health or suicide, so the cause of death is quite far from the core traits of autism.
They also have much to do with individual life circumstances and personal choices.
I am autistic, and I don't have depression/anxiety, or significant physical health problems, or negative well-being in other senses.
I don't have a problem with this research actually, I think it is fine for such findings to be published, but it is not good to overapply them to oneself, that just causes more stress or anxiety.

To an extent I agree with Bythnnr, given the way false beliefs can sometimes become an "everyone knows that" meme and then for some can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rather like the old axiom, "if you believe you can, or believe you can't, you are right". The WHI research, though false in its conclusions (heart attack and stroke incidence are a function of increasing age, not HRT use) became and "everyone knows" and still has adverse consequences for the target population.

Thank you for your kind comment KK however many of us here including yourself tend to play to our own individual strengths, which is good for WP generally The strength of offering comfort is yours.

When you perform quantitative research, the ideal is to be able to control all extraneous variables, with the exception of the independent variable that you are trying to manipulate. Whilst some of these extraneous variables can be controlled for (e.g., individual differences that can be accounted for through the division of subjects into groups by random assignment during the sampling process), others are far more difficult to control (e.g.environmental conditions, hereditary gene differences, life experience) and impact on the outcome of experimental research). These present but unrecognised factors are called "confounding variables" and they are threats to what scientists call "Internal validity". When you are doing population studies using indexes to obtain samples, the internal validity is easily compromised.

The rush to announce findings publicly before other scientists have a chance to scrutinise the data, method and findings (if they can even access the raw data, which is another problem), raises my level of suspicion. This group chose to announce findings before publication, and from past observations I don't think that is a prudent thing for any scientist to do.

It's quite a difficult undertaking to detach one's personal feelings from an interpretation of research which one encounters.

When I was 13, for example, I so wanted Neanderthals to be a member of our subspecies that I disavowed anything which pointed to Neanderthals being a separate species of the genus Homo--despite preponderant evidence which confirmed the separate-species impression.

When I do encounter a piece of research, I do look out for signs that it does not meet the stringent standards of the academic world.

There remains a tug-of-war within myself, however, when the research does meet those stringent standards, yet the findings do not reflect my impressions. It's an ongoing battle within my soul.

The way I take research findings about autism or anything else is that there are some findings, and we know about them, and over time, the preponderance of evidence will point towards what is closest to the truth, and some interpretations will be more supported, while others are less. There is no absolute this or that in research, and no need to take findings emotionally. Findings that one agrees or disagrees with are no better or worse because one agrees or disagrees, they just are there as some findings.

I think I would, ideally, want to think along the lines which btbnnyr presented to us.

Life expectancy of autistics - 30 years younger than their peers.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... ys-charity

Life expectancy of black men - 5 years younger than their peers.
http://www.businessinsider.com/huge-bla ... -us-2014-8

Life expectancy of gay men - 8 to 20 years younger than their peers.
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/fischer/101126

Life expectancy of those with PTSD/childhood trauma - 19 years younger than their peers.
http://childhoodtraumarecovery.com/cate ... -articles/

Life expectancy of cocaine addicts - 34 years younger than their peers.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... hours.html

Life expectancy of alcoholics - 23 years younger than their peers.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... hours.html

Life expectancy for people with recurrent depression - 7 to 11 years younger than their peers.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 082934.htm

Life expectancy for people with bipolar disorder - 9 to 20 years younger than their peers.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 082934.htm

30+5+8+19+34+23+7+9=135 years

I'm 53 now. By the above estimate I should have died 82 years before I was born. Trippy, huh?