Older adults with autism have a much higher risk of injury, including self-inflicted harm, as well as physical conditions like type 2 diabetes, anaemia, heart failure, and COPD. This information comes from a comprehensive registry study by Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity.

“We found that middle-aged and older autistic adults, both men and women, have an increased disease burden, regardless of the presence of intellectual disability,” said Shengxin Liu, a doctoral student at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Karolinska Institutet. “Our findings highlight the need to improve the support and care for older autistic adults.”

In a study, researchers at KI found that older adults with autism have a higher risk of injury and certain physical conditions compared to non-autistic individuals of the same age and sex. This information comes from a registry study conducted by Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity. Out of over four million people born between 1932 and 1967, 1,930 women and 3,361 men had been diagnosed with autism.

Seven-fold risk of self-harm

Autistic people had a higher risk of four of five studied injures, for which self-harm accounted for the greatest risk increase, followed by poisoning, falls and other physical injuries.

“The risk of self-harm was alarmingly high, being seven times higher than in non-autistic individuals,” Liu explains. “The reasons for this remain largely unknown. One possible contributing factor could be the presence of mental health conditions that frequently occur alongside autism, such as anxiety and depression.”

The researchers found that autistic people had a significantly higher risk for 15 different physical conditions. For instance, they had three times the risk of developing anemia and glucose dysregulation, and almost double the risk of heart failure, type 2 diabetes, and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).PD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).

Multiple contributory factors

“We now need to find out the cause of these associations and how they are affected by factors such as biology, age at autism diagnosis, psychotropic treatment, and psychosocial environment,” says the study’s last author, Mark Taylor, senior researcher at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet. “But most importantly, researchers, health services, and policymakers need to cooperate to ensure that older autistic adults have a better quality of life.”

As this was an observational study, no causal relationships can be established, and the researchers were unable to consider variables such as socioeconomic status. Additionally, the study’s reliance on Swedish registers makes it challenging to generalize the findings to other countries.