Lower life expectancy?

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Is it really true autistic people live to an average age of 39?

That is what some new Swedish studies have been saying

I think they're confusing autism with Down's.

The life expectancy of a healthy Aspie is normal.

The reason for the low expectancy is suicide, which is more an issue for higher functioning than low functioning.

Many people with Down Syndrome live to be older than 39 nowadays.

Nope....Aspies have a normal lifespan, maybe somewhat reduced by suicides. But definitely not reduced to 39 years old.

I've read something about this somewhere and the study/ies tended to focus on those who are more 'severe'. If I remember correctly often things like they weren't able to let anyone know if anything was wrong or couldn't identify it as in health wise. Also epilepsy is often co morbid and this would effect it too. And other health issues would too. I think it's like the studies on how many work. Often things only include those would have been diagnosed 30 years ago when only those who were more obvious were diagnosed. As those who are less obvious have only tended to be diagnosed in the last 20 or so years. So this skews it as well.

Perhaps, people with relatively severe autism have a lower life expectancy because of co-morbids, as Tetris stated.

That makes sense to me.

They base life expectancy on a lot of factors. How long it takes you to get to work or school in traffic and chance of getting in an accident. Likelyhood of only being able to do a low paying job so you can't afford healthcare and have low income housing in high crime areas etc. Not saying that applies to asd people in general, just ways in which they go about calculating life expectancy.

Yes, the analysis of the study reveals troubling results. As stated, suicide is a large factor in reducing life expectancy. Even correcting for suicide, life expectancy will be lower. Happiness, social involvement and being active are important for long life. People with spectrum issues tend to be more isolated, depressed and anxious than the population at large.

Eating well, exercising and forming supportive relationships will help you live a longer life.

The study should be taken with a grain of salt. The population sampling was not robust.

Also: autism covers a wide "spectrum" of manifestations--some of which are genetic in nature.

One, for example, might have a genetic condition with autism as a co-morbid. This genetic condition might have a lower life expectancy than the average for the population as a whole.

Frequently, life expectancy doesn't mean much to individual people.

Just because, say, people with autism are only expected to live to age 39, doesn't mean that I will die at age 39. I'm 55, and I'm still going strong!

It is often stated that the life expectancy of the average English person was about 19 years in the 18th century. This does not mean that the average person in those days died when they were 19 years old. It just means there was lots of infant mortality then. People definitely lived shorter lives in those days--but many people lived to their 80's and 90's, even back then.

So, James, if you don't smoke, and you don't drink, you'll probably live longer than somebody who smokes and drinks.

Asperger's (and uncomplicated autism), in and of itself, doesn't reduce life expectancy.

If one has autism accompanied by epilepsy, it MIGHT reduce life expectancy.

If one has Down Syndrome, life expectancy is reduced--but is rising every day.

In conclusion, James, you will probably live past age 39 (unlike Jack Benny!)

Again, "low-functioning" individuals with genetic anomalies (which might have low life-expectancy as one of the "symptoms") are probably included in these figures.

When we speak of a Spectrum, we speak of all autistic people.

If a person dies 18 years before "average," the person would die in his/her early 60s. Not 39.

I would say a person on the "higher" portion of the Spectrum, who does not suffer from things like epilepsy, probably live longer, on average, than somebody on the "lower" portion of the Spectrum who has seizures and other symptoms indicative of something other than "pure" autism.

For myself I know I'm going to die by suicide. There's no way this constant depression, isolation and anxiety will keep me around for long. I told my psychiatrist that yesterday. Given my extremely long history of severe depression, PTSD and previous hospitalization for a suicide attempt, I think people who know me have already accepted I'm gonna go the way of Alan Turing, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.

I think Jamesy may have been referencing the link below.

http://www.healthline.com/health-news/w ... ounger-age