Autistic sufferers likely to die younger, charity warns

A study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, has found that autistic people die an average of 16 years earlier than others, prompting the charity Autistca to call upon the government to carry out more research on the condition.

The charity is campaigning to raise £10 million to conduct more research into the mental condition. Figures show that in the UK, around 700,000 people have autism, which causes difficulty in communicating with others.

The study took place in Sweden and examined the health records of 27,000 autistic adults and used 2.7 million people as a control sample for the general population. It found that those with autism in addition to an associated learning disability died more than 30 years early, with the average age of death being just 39. The leading cause of death was epilepsy.

The study also proposed that autistic people who were not held back by any intellectual disability died around 12 years younger, at the average aged of 58, rather than 70. The most common cause of death for this group was recorded as heart disease and suicide, with women more at risk from suicide than men.

Mark Lever, chief executive of the National Autistic Society, said the situation could be even worse in the UK claiming there is ‘no reason to believe the situation would be that different here.’

A Department of Health spokesperson commented: "We have made monumental strides in the way we treat conditions such as autism in this country, but we must speed up progress even further.

"That is why we are working alongside people with autism, and their carers, to make sure they have access to healthcare with adjustments made for their conditions."