OT? ADHD and early death

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, used to be considered a problem of childhood because kids with ADHD have trouble focusing on school work and can be disruptive in the classroom. The core symptoms of ADHD are inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity.

Recently, psychologists have realized that many kids with ADHD grow up to be adults with ADHD. Here’s a humorous list of adult ADHD symptoms.

Here’s the self-test from the ADD association. There’s one obvious question that they somehow left off the test. “How often do you stop in the middle of a task and switch to a different task because it suddenly occurred to you?” That would be #21 on the humorous list above.

All this would be OT except that in 2022, over 7 million (11.4%) U.S. children aged 3–17 years were diagnosed with ADHD, an increase of 1 million compared to 2016. That is one in 9 young people who will grow up to become the future workforce. These ADHD-impaired workers will have Macroeconomic impact.

A massive new study from the UK links ADHD to a shocking reduction in life expectancy. The UK national healthcare system gives access to a huge amount of data that isn’t possible in the fragmented US health care system.

People With A.D.H.D. Are Likely to Die Significantly Earlier Than Their Peers, Study Finds

A large study found that men lost seven years of life expectancy and women lost nine years, compared with counterparts without the disorder.

Ellen Barry

By Ellen Barry, The New York Times,
Jan. 23, 2025

A study of more than 30,000 British adults diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., found that, on average, they were dying earlier than their counterparts in the general population — around seven years earlier for men, and around nine for women.…The new study examined 9,561,450 patients in Britain’s National Health Service primary care practices, among whom 30,039 had been diagnosed with A.D.H.D. Each person in the A.D.H.D. group was matched with 10 peers without the disorder for the purposes of comparison. [Now, THAT’S what I call a big data set! But the ADHD group was only 0.3% of the population which implies that they were the most severely afflicted. – W]

The study did not identify causes of early death among people with A.D.H.D. but found that they were twice as likely as the general population to smoke or abuse alcohol and that they had far higher rates of autism, self-harming behaviors and personality disorders than the general population. In adulthood, Dr. Stott said, “they find it harder to manage impulses, and have more risky behaviors.”…

A 2019 study that used actuarial tables to predict life expectancy concluded that adults diagnosed with A.D.H.D. in childhood had an 8.4-year reduction in life expectancy compared with the general population, something the authors attributed to reduced education and income, higher rates of smoking and alcohol consumption and reduced sleep… [end quote]

Like other human variables, ADHD occurs on a spectrum from mild to severe. If a person is functional there’s no need to worry. But if ADHD causes problematic behavior in adulthood it would be best for the adult to get treatment.

I wonder if knowing the correlation between ADHD and reduced life expectancy would motivate a person to modify their behaviors. Clearly that would depend on the person’s attitudes.
Wendy

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AFAIK I don’t have ADD or ADHD.
I’ll add this to my decision tree on whether to take SS now or at 70.
It gives another clue that I’ll live at least till 83, the 13 year break even age point when taking SS at 70.

Thanks.
:thinking:
ralph

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That’s why we should all be praying that AI eliminates the need for workers.

A lot of people are unemployable, and too many of the smart ones will only work from home, or have already retired at a young age once they’ve figured out the “system”.

intercst

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The decision of when to take SS is very personal. If you have a family history of longevity and already practice a longevity lifestyle you have a good chance of living past the median age, especially if you have a higher education and higher income. In that case it would make sense to wait until age 70 to take Social Security.

On the other hand, I got double breast cancer at age 61 and both my parents died around age 70. My recent open-heart surgery might extend my longevity another 12 years…or not. My husband is a smoker with moderate COPD whose actuarial life expectancy is 78. His smoking father died at age 65 of COPD. It doesn’t make sense for either of us to forgo current income on the slim chance that we will live to the breakeven age.

Wendy

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Many people take SS at 62 because they have physical problems. Particularly back problems put people out of commission in pain.

It is boring to retire too early.

People in pain are running for the exits.

I will never understand my classmate who was our valedictorian retiring at age 60. He seemed so old last summer. We were 61. He was resigned to doing nothing. He had gone to MIT after high school. He gave up a long time ago. But his health seemed fine.

Something I shot yesterday

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image533×400 71.5 KB

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That is the one surprise since I retired almost 5 years ago. I don’t have any free time. I thought there would be plenty of porch sitting time. Nope. The wife and I are always on the run. Makes us wonder how we ever had time to work full time jobs.

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That is true. My free time is spent on a better job, game developer. I have more to do if my job was gone tomorrow.

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Absolutely. In the summer, I am going to events once or twice every week. In the winter, I read, and learn. Every day is full. But the best thing is, I get up every morning, knowing that I will be doing something more enjoyable, than slogging to the job, so people can yip at me all day.

Steve

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