Adults who have ADHD could die up to 11 years earlier. The condition, which often leads people to behave impulsively, can cause some to smoke, overeat and drink too much. These behaviours may help to explain a study of 30, people with ADHD which found women diagnosed with the condition have a reduced life expectancy of about 6.
Men diagnosed with ADHD have a life expectancy which is around 4. An estimated three per cent of the population have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD , including the chef Jamie Oliver.
The study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, compared people diagnosed with ADHD from almost GP surgeries to more than , people of a similar age without the condition. Researchers tracked the deaths in each group of people using their health records. Men with ADHD could expect to live to the age of about 73 years and three months on average, while men without the condition reached the age of Women with ADHD reached just over the age of 75 on average, compared to the age of almost 84 for women without the condition.
The study says ADHD could reduce life expectancy by up to nine years for men and up to almost 11 years for women because it is hard to be precise. Most people are diagnosed with ADHD when they are young, and many people have not been diagnosed, which makes it harder to research. Fascinating graphs show how ADHD prescriptions have risen over time, with the patient demographic shifting from children to adults with women in particular now driving the increase.
However researchers found evidence that men and women diagnosed with ADHD are more than twice as likely to smoke compared to people without the condition. Men diagnosed with ADHD are more than twice as likely to drink a potentially harmful amount of alcohol, with women who have ADHD 76 per cent more likely to do so. People with ADHD are far more likely to be suicidal or have serious mental illnesses, which experts say is partially because of their struggle to plan and focus on mundane tasks.
