Hospitals

People with ADHD are at higher risk of dying young

A new study led by Dr. Soren Dalsgaard of Aarhus University suggests that people diagnosed […]

A new study led by Dr. Soren Dalsgaard of Aarhus University suggests that people diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are at risk of dying at a younger age than those without the disorder.

Usually the deaths are a result of automobile crashes and other accidents, according to the findings published in The Lancet on Wednesday.

Dalsgaard’s research team analyzed the medical histories of all children born in Denmark between 1981 and 2011.Out of 32,061 people with A.D.H.D., 107 had died before turning 33, which is twice the rate of premature death than with undiagnosed people.

The New York Times reported:

The study, an analysis of nearly two million Danish medical records, found that the odds that any individual with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder died young were still very low, about three in 1,000. But those with the disorder often had companion problems — drug abuse, for example, or antisocial behavior — that increased those odds.

The risk was even higher in people who received a diagnosis at age 18 or later, the study found — possibly because of the severity of such cases, the authors wrote. They included researchers from the Lundbeck Foundation in Denmark, which funded the research, and the Child Study Center at Yale.

Stephen Faraone, a professor of psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse who was not involved in the research, said despite the findings, this shouldn’t induce panic in parents of kids with attention problems. “But this is a large, well-done study, and I see it as a red flag planted in the terrain, a reason to identify and treat A.D.H.D.” This heightened risk could reflect late diagnosis, Faraone said, and by the age of 18, some of these undiagnosed children could be behaving more recklessly.

“If you look at the groups of problems that tend to go with A.D.H.D — conduct disorders, antisocial behaviors, substance use,” he said, “only one of these is easily treatable. And that’s A.D.H.D.”

[Photo from Flickr user Pierre Metivier]

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