Compared to other killers from a public health standpoint, ADHD is bad. Smoking, for example, reduces life expectancy by 2.4 years, and if you smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day you’re down about 6.5 years. For diabetes and obesity it’s a couple of years. For elevated blood cholesterol, it’s 9 months. ADHD is worse than the top 5 killers in the U.S. combined.
Having ADHD costs a person nearly thirteen years of life, on average. Barkley adds, And that’s on top of all the findings of a greater risk for accidental injury and suicide…About two-thirds of people with ADHD have a life expectancy reduced by up to 21 years.
This is from Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey in their book ADHD 2.0
Okay so lol.
The study effectively says, in an extreme TLDR;
A group of boys with ADHD - now men - were followed into adulthood and this data was then calculated.
If you remove the likelihood of accidental death via extreme risk taking (poor safety adherence in sports, etc) and substance abuse, you’re accounting for a five year difference.
This article wasn’t interesting at all because a basic logical conclusion would tell anyone that if you’re amongst a group with more risk taking, you’ll have a higher than average mortality rate.
The more interesting bit, is why is there a 5 year difference if you account for all those variables? Is that even an appropriate statistic to then use? Shrug, I find these types of articles are…almost hilariously self-defeating. Just pure doomerism for folks with ADHD that hate themselves for it.
wuhey my immediate assumption was indeed correct, ADHD is once again simply the “impulsive boys and men” disease.
like what’s even the point of writing articles about stuff like this? “congratulations, as if you weren’t already suffering enough from this we’re now also going to tell you you’ll die early! aren’t you glad?”
Are we speaking honestly here?
I mean I hate myself for my ADHD.
So it’s proven just for men. Wonder what it would be like if they studied women too. Thanks for tldr!